by W. J. Lundy
As they got closer to the gate, men rushed through to greet them from several open-backed trucks that sat parked in the breach. Helicopters raced overhead, dodging the bolts of blue plasma as they provided supporting fire to the men on the ground. Ahead, a man was standing in the high grass, directing the loading of vehicles as another man rallied soldiers to press on toward the battle near the orb. Laura stayed close to the woman, letting her lead the way to safety.
“Clem,” the husky woman shouted to one of the soldiers. Laura stopped and stood close with the others. The man glanced back then reached out and hugged the woman. “Ruth! I thought you got it back at the warehouse.”
The woman shook her head. “I should have. I was knocked out when our truck rolled, and I woke up here.”
Laura pushed past them and grabbed the man’s oilskin coat. “I remember you,” she said. “You were at the cabin; you left with my husband. Do you know where he is?”
Clem pursed his lips, looking at her and the young girl on her chest. He nodded and pointed at the far off gate where the battle still raged. “He’s in there, leading the fight.”
Laura turned and looked back, seeing the waves of Deltas and Reds rushing at the men dug in on the line, fighting against them as waves of helicopters roared overhead.
Clem put a hand on her shoulder. “Come on, we need to get you all out of here.”
Chapter 29
The transport moved forward on a cushion of air, rocked back with the shockwaves of nearby explosions. Rogers was sitting by Karina’s side, directing her path through the maze of rallied soldiers. The nearby men—some hiding in the woods; others, survivors and remnants from Meaford—had answered the call. Every unit and militiaman within fifty miles had come out of hiding to join the fight, all of them coming together in one last stand against the alien base.
James was standing in the open hatch, wearing one of the red-sleeved uniform jackets over his own uniform, running a heavy machine gun. He dropped back into the hatch just as a splash of blue harmlessly bounced off the surface of the hovercraft.
“You sure we’re safe in here, and wearing this shit, Karina?” James shouted, hesitating before he climbed back out of the hatch.
The guide was busy driving the vehicle and didn’t answer. Looking through the large, view-screen display, Jacob could see the chaos outside. All types of civilian and military vehicles were rushing by them on all sides. Columns of advancing troops were firing into the open gate as they moved forward. He even saw helicopters from some hidden base had joined the last-ditch fight against the invaders.
“This vehicle, and the Ursus’ uniforms, have thermal shielding; highly effective against the Ursus’ rifles,” Karina finally said. A burst of rounds pinged and crunched against the side of the transport, followed by a blast of sparks and smoke popping from a console on the bulkhead. “Unfortunately, we were not prepared for your high-velocity projectile weapons.”
“Well, that was stupid,” James laughed.
Jacob was also wearing one of the Ursus’ jackets. It had the feel of smooth synthetic leather; it was light and seemed to shrink and adjust to the occupant’s size. They’d used shoe polish to cover the red-striped sleeves in hopes that an excited soldier wouldn’t put a bullet into them. The pock-marked and blood-stained front of Jacob’s jacket reminded him that these coats wouldn’t work against a good old fashioned rifle. They’d procured the enemy armor, but the rifles were useless to them. Somehow tuned in to the alien DNA, their own human bodies were unable to activate them.
She shook her head, thrusting the vehicle forward, narrowly missing a car racing into a Delta horde at high speed. “The last time we visited this world, the most advance projectile we faced was a musket or a spear.” The craft rocked as it collided with a truck; she corrected course and directed it forward. “We would have expected your weapons to evolve with your technology—lasers or other energy-based weapons—but you humans have embraced your primitive projectiles.”
James laughed loudly, loading another belt of ammo into his M240. “Hell, yeah!” he shouted. “We love guns.” He stood and climbed back into the turret, firing long salvos into the Delta horde.
Jacob watched on the view screen as a column of small cars raced directly into the Deltas and exploded in the center of the mass. Karina ducked as the view screen filled with the devastation, the explosion temporarily washing out the display. Rogers righted her, putting her back on the controls. “Militias,” Rogers said, pointing to the craters left by the car bombs. “They are not to be fucked with.”
She put her head down, working the throttle and veering to the left to allow more of the car bombers to pass by her. “I will never understand your people’s call to violence. Why not just leave? Even if you win here, you cannot win everywhere.”
Rogers grunted. “Look who’s talking. Those men out there fighting have had everything taken away from them. Your people created this, not ours. You said it yourself; if we leave, they’ll cull this area with The Darkness. Maybe we can stop that.”
“You are only delaying the inevitable. The exodus has begun; there is no way for you to win once our main forces arrive. This is a waste of both of our people,” Karina protested as she watched the slaughter in front of her.
Rogers looked up and saw they were now at the stalled front lines. Ahead of them, men were exchanging gunfire with the aliens at long range. In the distance, he could just make out the glow of the alien orb. “Okay, this is close enough. We can move out on foot from here.”
With that, Karina broke the craft from its hover. Slamming a control arm forward, the vehicle anchored hard into the ground outside and came to rest, grinding against the earth below them. James’ machine gun continued to rattle away, spilling hot brass into the compartment. Duke paced and growled below, snapping at the man’s boots while Karina used a control panel to drop the rear ramp. Jacob lifted his rifle close to his chest and checked the action. He turned and followed Rogers out as the big man moved Karina ahead of him into the open battlefield. The sounds of war were louder outside, the air filled with the zipping of rounds, yelling of men, and the stench of burning explosives and gunpowder.
Overhead a Blackhawk passed by at high speed, gunners firing from the doors. The bird banked hard, making a dangerously close pass while the door gunners bled rounds into the last of the Delta lines. In front of the horde, the remnants of one of Meaford’s remaining rifle battalions were in close, engaging The Darkness at point-blank range.
“They teach you about close air support at your Star Fleet Academy?” Rogers said, smiling at the helicopters racing overhead. “I notice you turds don’t have any air defense.”
She shook her head. “Like I said… spears and muskets. But you can trust me when I tell you that our main forces will have such things. These skies will not be safe when the exodus arrives.”
Rogers moved around the side of the hovercraft; he squatted and waited for the others to catch up then peeked around the corner. Just as Karina had said, the defenders appeared to be pulling back. Off to the right was a series of loud explosions that rocked the ground and lit the sky to the east in balls of orange flame. He turned his gaze and pointed to a section of the alien wall, now crumbled and twisted. “That would be Clem. Right on time, opening another exit.”
Jacob stood and used the optics of his rifle to look in the direction of the blast, seeing the bright fireballs of exploding semi-trucks laden with explosives. The wall was peeled back in an open breach. Transport trucks raced through to gather the fleeing civilians. He searched the mass and could see long columns of approaching survivors. Jacob held his breath and prayed that Katy and Laura were in the group.
“You okay, Jake?” Rogers called back to him.
Jacob lowered his rifle; he closed his eyes, feeling his muscles tighten. He swallowed hard, knowing that they were exacting a hard revenge for everything that had been done to them. “On it, boss. Let’s get this done,” he said, pulling his rifle into h
is shoulder.
Rogers slapped James on the shoulder, the latter now having switched out the heavy machine gun for a carbine, Duke by his side and ready to move. “Lead us out, James,” Rogers said.
James grimaced and stepped off, running ahead at a jog with Duke beside him. Rogers led Karina ahead of him as they fell in with pockets of other soldiers advancing forward. The team ducked down a narrow street and headed for the main road that would take them in the direction of the orb. Jacob followed with his rifle up, covering the way. The Delta resistance had been broken; any of the remaining black-eyed creatures were now separated into small pockets and easily cut down by the approaching soldiers.
The Ursus were nowhere to be seen. The way ahead appeared clear, with an empty street all the way to the orb. “Where the hell are your friends?” Rogers barked after they’d reached a narrow street flanked by small cookie-cutter homes.
Karina stopped and looked ahead pointing. “They will set their final defense in the landing ship.” She turned back to Rogers. “Please… you must give them the opportunity to submit.”
Rogers shot her a hateful glare. “Like the one you gave us at Meaford?” He turned and signaled for James to press ahead into the quiet neighborhoods.
Along the route, the men stopped to pound on doors while others provided security. Along the outer walls, they could still hear heavy fighting as The Darkness drew toward the fighting in the community. Soldiers were working desperately to evacuate the last remaining civilians from the community, showing them the way out.
Jacob passed by the fleeing civilians, checking every face as the people passed. He was still surprised at the way the base fell and the inability of the invaders to put up a solid defense. “Karina, where is everyone? You must have more than this,” Jacob asked her as she trudged along beside him with her head down.
“Only two legions came down with the lander; we rely heavily on the witnesses for defense,” she said. “Your people have killed many of the Ursus in the field.”
“Why haven’t they sent reinforcements?” Rogers asked.
She stopped and rubbed her eyes, taking in a deep breath. “When our Messenger was killed at the reception ceremony, it brought great shame on this communal. Not only that, but it brought great attention on our failures. The council decided to write this place off, determining the population too dangerous for habitation. There will be no reinforcements.”
“You know, I was the one that tagged that fruit cake,” James grunted, overhearing the conversation.
She looked at him, puzzled.
“Your Messiah character, that was me,” James boasted proudly. “Easy shooting too. Right through the brain bucket. Split the dude’s grape wide open then punched two more into his chest for good measure.”
Karina turned away, horrified. “When you killed the Messenger, you took away the communal’s means of negotiation; only the Messenger has the privilege to settle for peace with the local population.”
James laughed and spit on the ground near her feet. “Some luck, huh?” He grunted and moved away, not expecting a response.
Uniformed men were bounding forward, moving tactically toward the final perimeter near the outer edges of the orb. James guided them through what appeared to be an alien motor pool divided into cubes. The nearby soldiers were swiftly moving the last pocket of survivors to safety through the maze of heavy rock barriers that separated sections of the motor pool from other areas while Jacob’s team moved into an empty bay that overlooked the front entrance to the orb.
No longer glowing, Rogers noted the dull object’s hatches and exits were sealed. A small balcony that ran along the roof of the object revealed small groups of the Ursus soldiers. They appeared to be randomly engaging the men on the ground with pot shots. Rogers quickly fell back into cover beside the others. An organized unit of combat engineers was moving ahead, supported by a Stryker vehicle, its 30mm gun blasting away at the sides of the ship.
Suddenly, the main hatch of the orb fell back. The void quickly filled with a large vehicle equipped with a massive turret that opened up with its main gun, destroying the Stryker with waves of plasma. The vehicle drew fire as it raced down the ramp to engage the engineers on the ground. The red-sleeved soldiers used the frenzied action to try to gain momentum. They poured out of the orb, firing at the dug in soldiers surrounding them.
“You must stop this,” Karina pleaded with Rogers. “Pull back! This fight is already over.”
Rogers shook his head. “No, we have to end this place and keep them from creating more of the Deltas.”
Karina’s eyes couldn’t grow any wider. She grabbed at Rogers, pleading with him to stop the killing. Ignoring her, he turned away. A group of soldiers ran to their position and knelt down next to Rogers. A sergeant leaned in close to report. “We have all of the survivors located. These are the last of the enemy holdouts; we finish them off and were clear to egress. The captain wants to know if there is anything your scouts can do to assist us in assaulting the craft.”
Without warning, the enemy fire intensified. Another hatch opened and a second assault vehicle rushed out of the orb, leading a wave of Ursus into the open. A soldier escorting the reporting sergeant was hit with splatter from the blue plasma; his face vanished in a hot flash. Rogers drew the other soldier deeper into cover before rising up to return fire.
Jacob watched in horror as a group of civilians were caught in the open. A man sprinted to the barrier, carrying a child in his arms. A Red directed several pulses at the man, narrowly missing, yet causing the man to trip and roll to his back. The Ursus concentrated their fire in the man’s direction as he scrambled to get his child into cover. Jacob jumped over the barrier he was hiding behind, James yelling for him to get back. Under intense fire with the blue bolts raining down on them from elevated positions, Jacob made it to the forward cover. He rose up, firing rapidly to suppress the aliens on the catwalk while screaming for the man and child to move.
Watching them get to cover, he tried to escape himself by crawling to a corner of the low wall then rising up again to fire back; this time his luck ran out and he was hit in the flank by a blast of plasma. He tumbled back, the air knocked from his lungs as he rolled behind the stone barrier. The Ursus’s armored jacket held, but he felt the blazing heat against his skin under his left arm.
The fire to his front stopped with the Ursus assuming he was dead, angering Jacob even more than being shot at. He clenched his teeth and checked the action on his rifle then rolled out of cover. He spotted the Red, now focused on his team. Jacob centered the cross hair and squeezed the trigger, proudly observing as the side of the alien’s helmet exploded outward.
The aliens appeared to be making a last push to retake the communal. “We have to get these people out of here,” the soldier yelled, pointing to a pinned down group of civilians behind them. He rolled to his left and back into cover, looking to the wall behind him and the huddled group of women and children. They reminded him of his family, and he immediately wondered if they’d gotten out safe.
Rogers turned to him and pointed to a parked alien transport in another of the sheltered bays farther away from the outer walls of the orb. “Jacob, take it and get these people to the coast.”
Jacob shook his head. “No. I’m staying, dammit. Have somebody else do it. Besides, I can’t drive one of those things.”
Rogers shook his head. “It wasn’t a suggestion; I’m telling you. Now take Karina and go. Get those people to safety. Meet up with Clem at the coast. If you hurry, you’ll get there before he leaves.”
Jacob hesitated and Rogers grabbed him by the shoulders, pulling him in. “Go. I’ll catch up with you later,” he said. “Don’t worry about us. Once we finish here, we’ll be right behind you.”
Jacob nodded and raised his fist to meet Rogers’. “See ya soon then,” he said, and ran off with Karina toward the hovercraft.
Chapter 30
The transport crunched over debris as it moved
toward the coastline. Jacob sat on top, surrounded by survivors who sat or stood anywhere they could find a spot atop the hovercraft. The vehicle was loaded to capacity. The compartment below was filled and they had kept the ramp open and dragged it behind them to allow more to ride along. The road was quiet; they hadn’t seen any of the enemy since leaving the walls of the communal. As the sun rose on the horizon, Jacob wondered what would come. Would the enemy send more to recapture it, or just let the place be?
Ahead, they spotted columns of civilians marching along the side of the road. They scattered upon feeling the ear tickles of the hovercraft, but then turned back, looking curiously to watch the alien vehicle covered with humans. Word had spread to get to the marinas on the coast if any survivors in the area wanted to leave.
Soon, the road was filled with walking crowds of people carrying all of their belongings. Once the road became too choked with people to proceed, Karina moved the hovercraft to the shoulder and they abandoned the vehicle. Jacob led her away, walking into the wood line, and kept her out of sight while he searched through discarded luggage and bags on the side of the road.
Jacob returned to her with a handful of clothing and children’s jackets recovered from the road. She was very small for a human woman, but Jacob figured she could easily pass for a young adult in the right light. He handed her a small, brightly colored jacket with a large hood he’d picked and stood watch while she changed into the new clothing.
As she made to rejoin him on the road, Jacob stopped and turned to face her. “I won’t make you stay with me. You are free to go.”
Karina frowned at him. “My people would refuse me now. I have nowhere to go, but I could help you.”