Alien Victory

by Mark Zubro

  “You okay?” Joe asked.

  Mike took several deep breaths. “What happened?” was the first thing he gasped out.

  They heard the earth itself rumble.

  Hok yelled, “Move, move, the earth is going to go again! This way!”

  Joe grabbed Mike and helped him to his feet. The four of them rushed ahead, Hok and Kench in the lead. In moments the earth began to slide. They ran faster. With a last lunge, Mike and Joe leaped past the rock that the lightning had split. They were on solid ground.

  In the pouring rain they looked back. With a rushing roar, it looked like half the mountain was flowing into the alley below.

  Joe had his arm around Mike’s waist. When the mountain stopped they all stood up.

  Hok said, “We’re going to have to find a way back that goes around that.”

  Mike said, “We’re alive.”

  Kench said, “Barely.”

  Their suits were covered in dirt, but the rain was washing it away in muddy rivulets.

  Mike asked, “What’d I do?”

  “You can make mountains move.”

  “I didn’t cause the mudslide,” Mike said.

  Joe said, “I know that. You saved Kench when the lightning hooked up with your power, like I did on Earth to defeat Vov, only this was smaller maybe because the lightning wasn’t a direct hit.”

  “It hurt like hell. I felt like my whole body got hit with one massive punch.”

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  Hok said, “I saw that. You moved a ton of dirt.”

  Mike said, “I did a little digging that saved one of us.”

  Using his mini-digger, Hok carved out a shallow cave out of an outcropping a hundred feet from the landslide.

  They crawled into it to be out of the rain and to rest for a while. Their suits did keep them dry, but being out of the constant pounding downpour was a relief.

  When they were seated, Mike asked, “Why doesn’t my power surge when rain hits me or my suit?”

  Joe shrugged. He said, “Vov was a genius. He programmed it to recognize threats and or maybe to recognize something as a threat when the neurons in your brain register that something as a threat. The neurons go faster than your conscious thought. Vov must have tapped into that. Implants do that although Vov’s implant seems to be far more advanced and sophisticated. At any rate, rain isn’t perceived as a threat.”

  “He was never out in this,” Mike said.

  Joe said, “We still gotta save the guy ahead of us.”

  Hok double-roped them all together and said, “I should have done this sooner. Sorry.”

  After ascertaining that they were essentially unhurt, they moved from their shelter out into the elements, and began to lurch forward.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  The going was rough. The ground was uneven: stones, rocks, rushes of water hid slick spots. They feared more landslides as they plunged ahead. The ground continued to slope up. They’d gone another half mile when they came to a chasm with a narrow land bridge. Mike couldn’t see the bottom through the rain on either side. The water made the path slippery. Without their special boots, Mike thought they’d easily go over. Their climbing shoes had a sticky material besides the mountain climbing cleats. With them, he hoped they wouldn’t go over. He was glad they were now double-roped together.

  Before they began to traverse the land bridge, they stopped and examined their way forward. Mike checked his communicator while the others examined their surroundings.

  Joe asked, “There’s no way around?”

  Hok said, “Not that I can see.”

  Mike said, “I get no other paths for at least a day’s march.” He nodded toward the narrow natural bridge over the deep gorge, “And the signal came from not far over the other side of that.”

  Squaring their shoulders, they lined up in their usual hiking order.

  Hok stepped off first. They each followed ten feet behind. Mike came last, Joe in front of him.

  It was a sharp ridge forming a saddle between what looked through the pouring rain to be a series of jagged rocks leading to looming and ominous peaks. As they walked along, Mike avoided looking into the abysses that fell to unseen depthless nothingness on either side.

  Mike grumbled, “Why were they so stupid to go this way in the first place?”

  Joe said, “Are we equally as stupid to be following them?”

  Mike said, “Stupidity is as stupidity does.”

  Mike felt like a tightrope walker working without a net, each step an instant away from eternity, a fall that could only end in death aura or no aura. It reminded Mike most of trying to walk on one rail of a set of railroad tracks, said rail being covered with ice. Okay, Mike had to admit, it wasn’t quite that narrow. Instead of a few inches, in places this was as many as twelve inches. In some places as few as three.

  Halfway across Mike slipped. He gave a loud squawk and began to topple to the left. Joe looked back. Mike’s aura flashed but it couldn’t stop him from falling. He scrabbled at the edge. His fingers slipped. He lost his grip and began to fall.

  Joe leaped off the ridge in the opposite direction.

  Mike jerked to an abrupt stop and dangled in the air for several moments. He found himself swaying in the wind. The dizziness of vertigo rushed through his mind.

  He thought, you’re not dead. You’re not falling. Open your eyes. He did and saw the sheer side of the ridge.

  He managed to grab onto the rope and hold on to it. His swinging became less. He felt less dizzy.

  Mike heard voices calling to him from above.

  He looked up.

  Above him to his left, Hok and Kench lay flat at the narrowest part of the ridge. Mike could see Hok’s right leg and Kench’s left as they faced each other.

  Hok raised up on his elbows and looked to the opposite side from Mike. From the internal communicator on the semi-spacesuit, he heard him call. “Are you okay?”

  Mike heard Joe’s voice, “Yeah.”

  Hok turned to Mike, who was still surrounded by his aura. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  Mike realized what Joe must have done. As soon as Joe saw Mike go over one way, he’d leapt the other, to equalize the weight and prevent them from being pulled into the abyss one by one off the side of the ridge. Hok and Kench, as experienced climbers, must have instantly fallen flat to keep from being pulled in either direction.

  He watched Kench back up and Hok inch forward. Gripping with hands, thighs, knees, and feet, they rode their crotches to where Mike and Joe dangled from opposite sides of the ridge.

  The two men arrived at where Mike swayed. He realized Joe must have been suspended on the opposite side in the same or almost the same place.

  Hok looked over the other side then down at Mike. He said, “You need to swing yourselves up against the mountain.”

  Mike hung onto the rope and twisted his torso until he began to sway back and forth. In minutes he was able to brace his feet against the side of the precipice. He saw water sluicing down the side of gray granite. The rope tied around his waist held him fast. He put his hands on the edge of stone. He got footing on the mountain side. He leaned back and clutched onto the rope. In seconds, he was at a ninety degree angle to the world. He looked up into rain falling into his face.

  Hok said, “Essentially, you’re going to walk back up to us. We’ll help you up, pull you onto this saddle, and keep everything balanced. You both have to climb at the same time to keep equal weight and pressure on the rope.”

  Mike heard Joe’s, “Okay,” the same time he said his own.

  Mike felt giddy and terrified. His stomach did flips. He feared that his husband, Hok, and Kench might have died an instant ago because of his clumsiness.

  Mike had never been afraid of heights, but now he felt a sense of vertigo flash through him. Guilt and vertigo, Mike thought. Hell of a combination.

  He gripped the rope, felt his feet against the mountain, pul
led in a breath then adjusted his feet as best he could against the side of the escarpment.

  Hok pounded pitons onto the top of the saddle and made sure their ropes were secure between them.

  The rain poured down.

  Hok said, “Okay, each of you, on my count of three, begin by taking one step.”

  Hok counted. Mike felt the pressure on the rope, felt his shoes catch. On three, he took a step up.

  The ropes of man and the accoutrements of climbing worked with them against nature.

  Gravity and the rain did their best to make their return to equilibrium unsuccessful. Mike felt as if an eternity passed between every step.

  While Mike’s aura could make the ridge ice-free and dry, it couldn’t make it wider or safer. It also couldn’t give his muscles extra strength, or his hands extra gripping powers, or lessen his fear. No superman prizes today, Mike thought.

  Mike felt a gush of relief when he finally saw the tip of Joe’s head appear above the ridge.

  Between his counts for them to take each step, Hok kept up a steady patter of, “You’re okay. You’re doing great. Just a few more steps.” He and Kench pulled on the ropes.

  Mike felt their strength and his exertions paying off.

  Mike and Joe scrambled at the same time up the last few inches so that they wouldn’t unbalance themselves again.

  They all sat astride the ridge, feet dangling on either side. It wasn’t wide enough to walk comfortably, and sitting on it was like straddling a saddle that was across the back of a cranky greyhound. Mike didn’t care. He felt safe or at least safer. He was no longer dangling thousands of feet above nothing.

  Mike saw Joe breathing hard and realized he was gasping and panting as much as his husband. For Mike it seemed like every bone in his body hurt. The mountain climbing, all-weather protective suit couldn’t keep the sweat from running down his neck, his armpits, and his crotch.

  When they’d caught their breath, Hok said, “The storm is increasing. We need to get off this ridge. The wind is picking up. It’s nearly mid-day, and it’s getting darker.”

  They heard a rumble of distant thunder. Hok said, “And it would probably be best if we weren’t on this thing when lightning strikes.”

  Exhausted as he felt, Mike was willing to make his way to the further side. Hok got himself and Joe turned and heading in the same direction as Mike and Kench.

  Joe said, “I’m not sure I can stand up.”

  Mike found that his mind wanted him to stay attached to this bit of the planet and not even try to stand up. He felt like a child afraid to take his next step.

  Hok said, “Mountain fear. We’ll take it slow. We’re going to crawl.”

  The thought came unbidden to Mike, the old saying about it didn’t matter how slowly you go as long as you don’t stop. He thought somebody famous said it, Confucius, Churchill, or maybe his Aunt Rose or Mao and his thousand mile shtick. Whoever it was, it applied to this mess.

  On hands and knees they began to creep forward. Five feet, ten. One grip at a time. For the last twenty feet, they actually sat and inched forward with crotches against the stone. They used the bottom of their torsos as wells as hands, knees, and feet to inch forward. Mike thought it was like an adult on a pony ride, a very skinny pony with a lumpy saddle made of sharp rocks. While pausing for breath a feet from the end, he mused that he used to think cowboys were sexy. Well, they probably still were, but you couldn’t tell it from the mauling his dick and balls were getting as he crept along on the rough pointed surface. Neither his aura nor the semi-spacesuit were any protection from this odd assault.

  Mike had no idea how much time passed until he saw the land widening out in front of him. A few moments later they lay in the lee of a gigantic, jagged crag, a sort of sentinel at the end of the path.

  Mike glanced up between the rocks and tors ahead of them. He pointed and said, “I can see a flash of light every couple seconds between the rocks about a hundred feet ahead of us.”

  Hok looked. “I see it. It’s not lightning.”

  Mike staggered as he got to his feet. They weren’t that far from the precipice they’d just crossed. He felt the vertigo creep up on him again. He turned to face ahead and didn’t look back. He then realized if they were going to get off the mountain, they’d most likely have to cross back the way they’d come. No time to think about that now.

  Mike tried a step forward. He felt himself wobble. He saw Joe limp slightly. Hok kept an arm around Mike. Kench did the same for Joe.

  Hok said, “We’ll take it slow.”

  While leaning on Hok, Mike checked his communicator. He got a reading that there was a confirmation that another communicator was ahead of them. It was the one Brux had noted in the communication room far below in their camp, and that they’d been following all this time.

  Mike tried calling Brux, but only got atmospheric interference.

  Both Mike and Joe placed hands against the rock on their left as they began to slog forward.

  Joe moved close to Mike. They touched each other briefly, as if saying they needed a tactile moment, not just the proof their eyes gave them, that they were still alive.

  They kept to the small declivities between the rocky outcroppings. The wind continued to rise and the sky to darken. In a few minutes thunder and lightning blasted around them. Even with their protective suits, they gave up their forward movement and hunkered down in the lee of several rocks. They were at the heart of the storm. For a few moments snow and ice swirled. Mike set his aura to protect them from the elements.

  Even though they had the ability to communicate in their suits, Joe leaned close to him and said, “You probably shouldn’t use the aura too much in this storm. Remember how I called down the lightning down on Earth and what happened with the landslide a little earlier.”

  Mike did remember both. On Earth it had been a titanic blast amid a crashing thunderstorm.

  Mike shut it down. Their suits would have to do. After some time, Mike wanted to shout, “Stop it,” to the heavens. If he thought it would have done any good, he would have. His ears rang with the noise. Mike thought this is what being in the middle of a thunderstorm is.

  The four of them huddled together. Their suits kept them warm, but the feeling of closeness kept their psyches soothed.

  After an hour, the storm eased. As the thunder lessened, the ringing in Mike’s ears began to ease.

  They staggered forward to where their communicators said the light had been. When the storm had forced them to halt, Mike thought they must have been within a mile of the signal.

  In a few hundred yards, the ground began to slope precipitously up. They struggled for hand holds and footing, often scrabbling with feet, knees, elbows, and fingers.

  Hok, still leading, came to a more level spot and turned back for them. A few yards beyond this, they rounded an outcropping and came upon Krim. He lay under a shelf of rock. His eyes were closed.

  They rushed to him. Mike saw that he was breathing. His semi-spacesuit was torn and tattered. Mike let his aura expand. Their suits were a protection but this would now keep them in a canopy where the elements could not get in.

  Up close he could see that the boy’s left leg below the knee was crushed and useless.

  Krim opened his eyes. He whispered, “I was trying to get back.”

  “What happened?”

  Joe held Krim in his arms. He looked up at them. The boy spoke between soft gasps. “We made it to a valley.”

  While the boy talked, Kench used his dig-all device to form a small cave out of the nearest cliff. They carried Krim into the shelter. They all gathered within Mike’s aura and gazed at the wounded teen.

  Mike and Joe knelt down next to him. Joe got his medical kit out and began to minister to the boy.

  Mike asked, “Is that thing going to completely fix his leg?”

  “If we had the best equipment in the galaxy, yes, within minutes. Even the one on my ship, advanced as it was, would take a whil
e.” Joe pointed at the device the size of a small flashlight. “This will probably fix him enough so that he’ll be able to walk or at least limp on his own power.”

  A blue glow, separate from Mike’s aura, emanated from the medical device. It was the size of a tight flashlight beam. Joe ran it from the kid’s ankle to his knee. After five minutes, the glow began to fade.

  “Will it help if I try to enhance it?” Mike asked.

  Joe said, “You can try.”

  Mike did. Ten minutes later there had been no further improvement.

  Mike muttered Ioreth’s line from The Lord of the Rings, “The hands of the King are the hands of a healer and so the rightful king could ever be known.” He sat back on his haunches and muttered, “I guess I’m not King.”

  “Is that good or bad?” Joe asked.

  “Depends on how the kid is.”

  Joe took a small pad filled with multi-colored dots out of the medical kit. The dots were about the size of an aspirin tablet.

  Mike pointed at them and asked, “What do those do?”

  “A couple are universal antibiotics. Some are pain meds. This one is a mixture of both.” He took one of the dots and affixed it to the mid-point of the boy’s injury.

  “Now what?” Mike asked.

  Joe said, “He should be awake in a few minutes.”

  They listened to the storm and waited. Joe was right. Krim woke up about five minutes later.

  He gazed at them in confusion. “Where are the others?” he asked. “Am I okay?”

  “How does your leg feel?” Joe asked.

  Krim touched it, “Better than it was. A little sore but not much.”

  They helped him stand. He took a few tentative steps. He limped but said he was okay.

  Mike said, “You asked where the others are. We have the same question.”

  Krim told his story. “Our journey up here wasn’t so bad. We mostly followed the storms as they receded. They didn’t get awful until the last few days. We didn’t think it would take this long to get here. We were headed for the site of one of the first colonization attempts. It was on an old computer file. It’s deep down in the middle of this range of mountains. It had water. Up above it freezes. In the valley, we found caves where we were out of the elements. We stumbled on evidence of the previous colony’s work. That’s the only thing that saved us. We managed to find enough shelter and then start a tiny bit of digging on our own. We didn’t do all the safety precautions we should have. We only had one broken down old digger, and we had to carry it up in pieces. So we put it together, and it only worked sometimes. We just kept digging. We didn’t have specs on where to dig, like we do in the colony. We just wanted to get in and get out farther out of the weather. Then one day our main tunnel collapsed. A couple of the men died. We tried calling for help, but we couldn’t get through. A lot of our stuff got buried. We couldn’t bring the heaviest equipment with us. They were mad that you wouldn’t let them.”