Raging at the Stars

by Lesley Davis

  She drove around a huge piece of brickwork that had been sheared off a building that now stood half its previous height. Behind it, she saw a group of men break away from a fire and hurry toward the van. Emory deliberately pressed her foot on the gas, but the men crowded directly in her path. Trapped between them and the debris blocking her escape, Emory was at a loss as to what to do. The men began banging on the van’s panels as they ran alongside her. The looks on their faces terrified Emory. These weren’t people looking for help. She guessed they wanted the van and her. She leaned on the horn, but it didn’t deter them. One man grabbed at her side mirror and hung off it, scrabbling to get a hold on her door. Emory didn’t hesitate; she pulled her gun and aimed it at him.

  “Get the fuck off my Bus!”

  He wrapped one arm around the mirror and drew back the other to punch at the window to smash it. Keeping at her break neck speed, Emory rolled her window down and coldcocked him in the face with her gun. He fell off with a pained yell, and Emory lost no time in gunning the engine to get away from them. She drove over the piles of debris far quicker than she should have. She could hear the furious screams behind her and heard the thuds as something banged off the back of the van.

  “Charming area,” Dink said, sounding as shaken as Emory felt.

  “What is it about a time of fear that sets man against himself instead of us all just fighting together?”

  “We’re a weird race, Emory.”

  “That we are, Dink.” She winced as she felt the pain flare in one of her fingers. “I think I broke a knuckle on that guy’s face.”

  “Totally worth it for such a badass move,” Dink said. “Better he got a face full of gun and fist than you having to shoot him.”

  Emory agreed. She didn’t want to have to resort to that in order to get to her final destination.

  Like I don’t have enough to contend with without the human race turning on itself to survive.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  The moon was finally visible as it loomed large and bright in the night sky. Emory imagined she could see every crater that resided on its surface. It illuminated the highway Emory drove on. She was thankful to see other motorists on the road, no doubt going about their own evacuations. She wondered where they were all running to and if they, like her, had a friend to hide out with while the world went crazy around them.

  This area of Kansas City was highly populated and was the last leg of Emory’s journey. She’d driven for over twenty hours, stopping only once to grab an hour of fitful sleep. She’d finally had to pull over because she was starting to imagine things in the sky when nothing was there. Dink had watched over the area for her while she’d tried to sleep. Night had descended, but Emory knew this road well and was happy to be somewhere familiar and so close to getting her to Dink.

  Lights shone out from the houses on the side of the road. Some of the homes had been boarded up, as if the occupants were anticipating some terrible storm. Emory knew all too well that all the wood across windows and barring the doors wouldn’t stop the aliens from taking what they wanted. On her drive through Nebraska she’d seen so many people coming in and out of their storm cellars, hiding to wait out the invasion. Out in the fields, she’d passed bases where the doomsday preppers stood their ground. She had to admire their foresight. They had been ready for just about any eventuality. It was more than some places had been prepared for.

  She couldn’t help but think of Area 51.

  There was a flash in the sky that drew Emory’s eyes up. Out of the darkness, a saucer was descending. At the same time, Dink shouted out its presence. They appeared out of thin air within seconds.

  “Is it alone?” Emory asked, searching for somewhere to hide. The fear at the saucer’s arrival was overshadowed by the dread that it wasn’t alone and would be followed by the ubiquitous black triangular craft. This time she didn’t have the comfort of the US army with their tanks rushing to her aid.

  “One saucer confirmed so far,” Dink advised her.

  Emory didn’t stop. The saucer was in the distance so she continued until she could find a safe location to try to hide. The saucer stayed still in the sky, suspended over the far away houses.

  “What’s it doing?” Emory was unable to take her eyes off the craft. Other cars on the highway skidded to a halt and began hastily reversing back from where they had come. The other cars either blew their horns as they tried to miss the erratic drivers or just pulled over to the side of the road to watch.

  Emory kept one eye on the cars and the other fixed on the stationary saucer. The farther down the road she got, the clearer the saucer became. Emory would never get over the size of the aliens’ ships, and she’d been up close and personal with them in the hangar at Tesla Falls.

  “Emory, are you going to pull over soon?” Dink’s voice was wary. “I’d rather you didn’t get too close to that thing.”

  Emory kept on driving.

  “Em?”

  Emory knew what she was doing. She had the horrible feeling she knew what was about to happen, and she wasn’t going to allow it again. She could see the saucer in greater detail now. The white beam shot out of it and enveloped the houses below.

  “Oh, no you don’t, you bastards.” She didn’t even consider her actions. She just reacted.

  The saucer was sweeping over the rooftops, illuminating everything with a bright light. It seemed to be searching for something.

  “It’s checking the houses for signs of life,” Emory said. She sped up, racing through the streets toward it.

  “Emory, you can’t do anything against that thing! Pull the fuck over!”

  Emory ignored him and skidded around a corner nearly on two wheels in her haste to get under the saucer’s hull. She’d watched her niece be taken away. She wasn’t letting that happen again when she was so close to a craft again.

  She could feel the saucer above her as she slammed on her brakes and skidded to a halt. She scrambled out of her seat and threw herself into the back of the van.

  “What are you doing?” Dink asked.

  Emory checked the back of the van. “God damn her!” She searched everywhere, tossing things aside in her desperation. “She took the bag of weapons. That bitch took the guns!”

  “Will you fucking hide?” Dink screamed hysterically.

  Emory tugged at the piece of hardboard that was on the base of one of the long seats. It slid across to reveal a neat hiding place. Emory chortled. “She missed this one. Come to Mama, Rooty!” She pulled out the handheld launcher and quickly tried to work out how to attach the missile. “Dink, can you see a safety on this mother?” She could hear Dink almost gibbering in her ear. “Focus! I’m not letting this saucer take anyone while I can help it.”

  Dink pointed out what she needed to do. Emory got out of the van, the launcher heavy in her arms. She ran as fast as she could around the houses, trying to find the perfect position to try the weapon out.

  “Emory, you’ve never used one of those before. It’s going to have a kickback like a mule.”

  Emory was too busy climbing over a fence to care what Dink was saying. She had one objective in mind.

  Blow the saucer out of the sky.

  “What if the missile bounces off the hull?”

  She growled at Dink’s query but continued to run across people’s lawns while looking up at the underside of the saucer. She was looking for any kind of weak spot she could exploit. She had an idea when the saucer would be at its most vulnerable. The trouble was, that meant she would be at hers too.

  “You’d better not be thinking of getting yourself sucked up by that thing!”

  Emory didn’t want to die, but she’d seen what atrocities the aliens had been doing in that lab. This saucer wasn’t going to take any more.

  Not on my watch.

  She watched the light stop its sweep over the houses and a more concentrated beam switched on. By whatever magical, mystical energy the aliens employed, Emory saw the paralyzed b
odies of people start being pulled out from their houses. She lifted the missile launcher on her shoulder and stepped a little closer to the edge of the beam. She could see an opening at the narrowest point of the beam that disappeared into the craft.

  “EMORY!”

  “Whatever happens, Dink, keep recording.” Emory hoisted the launcher more comfortably into position and placed her finger over the trigger. “If this doesn’t work, find my nieces, Dink. Find them for me.” She aimed the missile at the opening in the craft.

  “This is for making me believe,” she muttered and stepped into the light, pressing the trigger as she went. The missile shot up into the beam. Its flight was slowed as it fought against the beam’s paralyzing grip.

  Emory was pulled up into the beam behind it. Her mind was crystal clear and running a mile a minute, but her breath was caught in her chest while her muscles were locked in a strange rigor. She felt frozen in time, weightless, captured in the cold beam that pulled her up toward the saucer. She wondered if this was what dying felt like? The inevitable pull toward the light that, in the end, you just couldn’t escape. She couldn’t look down or around. She couldn’t move her head at all, but she’d been whisked up with her face raised. Her eyes were fixed on the tail end of the missile as it worked its way up in the air. It was aiming dead center for the opening in the craft.

  If nothing else, I’ll at least have tried. I’d rather die fighting back than hiding and waiting to be experimented on.

  She had no idea how far off the ground she was. Time was endless in the stream. Only the missile fought against it and pushed ahead against the flow. Emory could see a few bodies above her that were out of the range of the missile’s trajectory. She couldn’t hear Dink any more. She couldn’t say good-bye. Nothing existed but the silence of the beam. It was oddly peaceful.

  An odd sound reached Emory’s ears. It seemed to make the beam vibrate like a tuning fork ringing out a reverberating tone. Emory blinked. She quickly blinked again.

  Oh crap. The beam is destabilizing and that’s the only thing keeping me up.

  There was a bright flash of color that seared her eyes. Oranges and reds erupted inside the saucer and then the sound escaped. Emory went from utter silence to a deafening explosion that ripped a huge hole in the bottom of the saucer and broke the beam’s hold on them all. Like a marionette cut from its strings, Emory felt the weight of her body return a split second before she began plummeting back to earth.

  “Shit!” she screamed as she dropped like a stone.

  Well done, Emory Hawkes. In the history of dumbest moves this has to be your dumbest.

  The launcher slipped from her grasp as she flailed her arms and legs in a pathetic attempt to keep herself afloat. The other people released from the beam tumbled with her, screaming as they fell. Emory closed her eyes and prayed. “Oh God, don’t let me…”

  She slammed hard onto the roof of a shed, the force of the landing wrenched the air from her lungs. She slid off the incline. The roof’s edge caught at her pants, ripping them open and gouging an ugly gash deep into the flesh of her thigh. She fell off to land splayed out on some perfectly shaped topiary that bent under her weight and rolled her to the ground with one last thump.

  “Emory?”

  Emory tried to calm Dink, but she first had to pry her mouth open to free her tongue from her teeth. The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth and she spat out as much as she could before she choked.

  “Owwwww!” she whined, turning onto her back and trying not to cry out at all the pain that burned through her body. She directed her eyes skyward and watched the fire and light show flickering inside the crippled saucer. The explosion had ripped open its belly and left a huge gaping hole in its wake. Emory could see little alien bodies inside on fire. Their pale skin grew bright as they were immolated. Unable to move, she watched in fascination as the craft seemed to lurch from side to side. The ship tried to rise, but it dropped back again, spinning helplessly until it limped away, desperately leaning to one side. It barely made it over the houses. Some roofs were ripped from the buildings as the saucer smashed into them as it tried to flee. It finally disappeared from Emory’s line of sight. Only then did she try to get up.

  “Dink, can you see it?”

  “It’s trying to get some altitude but it’s…” He paused. “Oh oh.”

  “What?”

  Emory didn’t need to be told. There was the sound of a crash and then the sky lit up with a massive fireball. Emory fell back to the ground covering her head as debris blew out in all directions.

  “It hit a gas station,” Dink said. “Big ship go boom.”

  There was another explosion, and Emory narrowly missed being hit by a piece of something that was sharp and metal or maybe part of the saucer. It landed with a thump by her ankle. The piece wavered as it impaled itself into the dirt.

  “If that’s flying saucer material grab it for me please,” Dink said. “Seeing as you weren’t able to bring that ship back to me in one piece.”

  “I’ll try harder next time.” Emory gingerly reached for the fragment and hissed as it burned her hand. She blew on it quickly.

  There were more sounds of explosions, and Emory ducked every time just in case something else was going to rain down on her. She moaned as the pain in her leg intensified. She carefully peeled back what was left of her pants and grimaced at the state of her leg. “I think I might have to raid the first aid kit for this.”

  “Considering you’ve just been dropped out of the sky without a safety net I think you’re lucky you didn’t break your damned fool neck!”

  “Can you see any of the other folks?”

  “There’s a surveillance camera on a house opposite you I’ve patched into. The others are probably battered and bruised like you are but glad they’re alive and not alien bait. The saucer, however, is one less we have to worry about. But I swear, as soon as this madness is contained, I’m sending you for therapy because you’re scaring the shit out of me!”

  “Well, one thing I proved was that I’m a pretty decent shot with that launcher.” Emory looked around her and spotted the missile launcher nearby. She dragged herself upright by grabbing the topiary. Her leg was in agony, but she finally managed to stand. With a very pronounced limp, Emory managed to rescue the launcher from the dirt and then went back to gather up the specimen for Dink. She looked the shard over carefully. “I think this is saucer shaped, Dink. Clear a space on your mantle.” She juggled the shard and the launcher in her hold. “It’s a good thing I hid this weapon. I can’t believe I never noticed she’d cleared the others out. I’d hidden this and the missiles for it.”

  “You are not doing that again! You’ve nearly given me a coronary with that stunt. I’m not going to survive a second round, and you can’t keep throwing yourself into the beams. The third time you try it you might not be able to get away.”

  Emory grunted with every step she took. Her leg was bleeding profusely, and the pain was making her nauseous. “I need to get something on my leg that will last until I get back to you and you can have a look at it. I don’t dare go to a hospital. If I told them what had happened they’d be liable to commit me.”

  “I’d do that myself if I could. Just wash it out and wrap it up as tight as you can. Then just get your ass here, without any more side missions, please.”

  “I stopped it from taking any more people. That’s more than the military has done.”

  “Yes, it is. You are brave, and certifiably insane.”

  Emory snorted. “Nothing new there.” She wiggled her tongue experimentally. “I think I bit a chunk out of my tongue.” It felt sore and thick in her mouth. “I’m going to need copious amounts of ice cream.”

  “It will be waiting for you.”

  “Do you have any friends nearby that can come and scavenge from the area?”

  “Got a friend en route right this second. But you need to get out of there. Your job is done, StarKiller. Come on home.”
<
br />   Emory limped along with the launcher cradled in her arms like a baby. She spat out more blood and moaned at how sore she was.

  Damn, they make this heroic stuff look so easy in the movies.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  The Ozarks had never looked so welcoming. The forest made Emory feel oddly protected as she wended her way farther up the mountain and off the regular tracks. She grinned as an all too familiar sight greeted her on the last leg to Dink’s hideaway. Christ of the Ozarks suddenly loomed before her, incongruous amid the mountainous region. The massive statue with his arms outstretched never failed to astonish Emory, its immense size hidden like a treasure in the foliage. It wasn’t what you expected to find in the middle of the Ozarks, a huge figure of Christ, watching over them all.

  Just like Dink, Emory thought, drawing closer to the statue and getting to see what Dink had been alluding to days earlier. Strung all around the tall statue were endless cables, wires, and satellite dishes that had kept Dink online and able to watch over everything. Dink had left everything in the hands of the Lord. Emory craned her neck to look up at the statue and was surprised by how high the wiring traveled to get the strongest signal. How Dink had managed that was a miracle in itself.

  Emory followed a specific path that she and Dink had cut out to allow her to drive straight to his home. She ferried too much equipment back and forth for him to have to leave her vehicle farther down the track and finish the journey by foot.