by Nick Cook
I spun round to stare back. The two TR-3Bs had floated up towards the top of the ridge. Both crafts’ spotlights converged, locking on to the same spot.
‘And now they’ve bloody found me!’ Lucy said.
‘Then get the hell out of there,’ I shouted.
‘But if I do that I’ll be out of range and you’ll be dropped out of the twilight zone.’
‘Then here’s the new plan. Take them on a wild goose chase and then make your way back towards the rendezvous site out on the main road.’
‘But, Lauren—’
‘Just do it already. Leave the X101 behind for Ruby and leave the rest to us.’
‘Then good luck to all of you,’ Lucy said, her voice far tenser than I’d ever heard it.
Under the twin spotlights the trees on the ridge suddenly swirled aside as Lucy took off. A split second later, both TR-3Bs were zooming towards the eastern horizon chasing Lucy who was glowing like a lit-up Christmas decoration in the twilight zone. But even though she was invisible in the real world, those sensor beams of the TR-3Bs had obviously still been able to detect her and lock on.
My mind raced as I fought the feeling of panic spinning faster inside me. ‘Ruby, have you got a line of sight on either of those guards at the gate we’re closing in on?’
‘I have on the guy standing to the right of the Humvee.’
‘Then take the shot now.’
A slight hiss of air sped past and one of the two guards crumpled to the ground.
‘I’m going to be out of range in three, two, one…’ Lucy said. A slight crackle filled the comm link and her voice hissed to silence.
The world started to grow solid again as we shifted back. Immediately the remaining guard’s gaze locked on to us. He dropped down to hunker behind the Humvee.
‘This is bad, Lauren,’ Jack whispered.
‘We’ve been in worse.’
I slowed my breathing down, my LRS aimed. Hundreds of hours on the kinetic firing range was kicking in. I was poised, ready to strike.
The guy’s helmeted head appeared first, then his carbine being levelled towards us. I breathed out and squeezed the LRS’s trigger. A single bullet hole appeared in the guy’s forehead, the impact spinning him round into the Humvee’s bonnet. He slid down it, leaving a smear of blood.
I breathed out, shocked at how calm I felt. When had it become so easy to take a life?
A whistle came from my earbud. ‘Wow, nice shooting, Lauren,’ Ruby said. ‘Talk about being cucumber cool under pressure.’
‘That’s our Lauren,’ Jack said.
I glanced back to see at least ten soldiers heading into the medical tent where as far as they knew we were still hunkered down. ‘OK, we need to get out of here as fast as possible,’ I said.
‘So let’s steal that Humvee and get the hell out of Dodge,’ Jack replied with what I’m sure was meant to be a cowboy drawl.
Before I could reply, a blaze of bullets kicked up the mud behind us. The soldiers had reappeared from the medical tent and were rushing towards us. Alvarez was limping behind them, barking orders.
A bullet pinged off the base of the sarcophagus and sparks flew out from the impact.
I glanced down to see a bullet hole in the antigravity pad. Its lights flickered and died. The sarcophagus, with Mike on it, suddenly became impossibly heavy and we had to drop it hard on to the ground.
‘Shit, we have no way of moving the Grey now,’ I said.
‘We have to abandon him,’ Jack said.
‘Bloody hell, all this has been for nothing,’ I said as I fired off several covering rounds as Jack dragged Mike from the top of the sarcophagus and hoisted him over his shoulder.
‘We have no choice,’ Jack said as I waded with him away from the Grey through the mud towards the Humvee.
Shouts and cries came from behind us as soldiers in the pursuing squad toppled to the ground, bullet rounds slamming into their bodies.
‘Ruby!’ I said into my mic.
‘I know, I know, but I want to make sure you get away OK.’
‘Thank you for being so damned brave,’ I said.
‘No more than you guys.’
Ruby continued to snipe from the other side of the lake. I fell back as Jack headed towards the Humvee so I could give him covering fire. Between Ruby and I, we caught the approaching soldiers in a crossfire, forcing them to drop flat into the dirt as Jack reached the Humvee and hauled Mike into the passenger seat.
I spotted a soldier at the front of the squad pulling back something beneath his weapon’s barrel.
Jack had seen him too as he raced round to the driver’s seat. ‘That guy’s about to fire a grenade at you!’
With a hiss, the man sprawled dead to the ground.
‘Or maybe not,’ Ruby said. ‘But, boss, I really don’t think I can hold out much longer here. They’re bringing round two Humvees with M2 Brownings to deal with me. I think I may have kept their attention a little too well.’
‘Then, as I said before, get the hell out of there already! Head back to the X101. Then fly round to pick us up at the rendezvous point.’
‘I will, Lauren,’ Ruby replied.
Even in this crazy situation, part of my mind noted she’d dropped her sarcastic use of ‘boss’.
‘Kill those bastards!’ Alvarez screamed at his soldiers.
A hailstorm of fully automatic rounds lit up the faces of the squad as they fired towards us and we dived for the ground. I knew Alvarez would be determined enough to take out the Humvee with another grenade if that stopped us escaping. I needed to do something at a truly batshit level of crazy if any of us were going to get out of here in one piece.
And then it got worse. I spotted the helmets of a second squad running along the far side of the wall, straight towards the Humvee. Alvarez was attempting to catch us in a pincer movement, and they would be on top of Jack and Mike before I could get there.
‘Jack, take the Humvee and make for the rendezvous point,’ I shouted as I emptied my LRS clip and reloaded.
His eyes snapped from the second squad he’d been firing at back to me. ‘But what about you?’
‘I’m going to give you covering fire instead, so you can get away. If someone doesn’t stay behind, no one will make it out of here.’
‘But you can’t!’
‘I bloody can; I’m the one giving the orders. Just leave me with any grenades you have left.’
Jack hesitated, but then lobbed me his bag. We stared at each other for a second, even though we were painfully aware of the soldiers closing in rapidly on his position. There was so much I wanted to say, but there simply wasn’t time.
‘Lauren, I…’ Jack began before his words trailed away.
‘Yes, I know and if we make it out of this, you and I are so having a heart-to-heart.’
Bullets sparked off the nose of the Humvee as Jack stared at me. His mouth opened and closed as if he wanted to say something.
‘Jack, for Mike’s sake if nothing else, go!’
He gave me a nod, threw a smoke grenade at the squad closing in on him and at last jumped into the cab.
My heart ached, but I ignored it and returned my attention to Alvarez.
A sustained barrage of automatic fire hissed past me and I dropped flat into the mud again. I hunted through Jack’s bag as I heard the Humvee’s engine roar into life. As soon as Alvarez realised what we were doing, he’d have the Humvee taken out for certain. I needed to do something before that happened. I found two smoke grenades and a flashbang in the bag. I pulled the pin on one of smoke grenades and lobbed it at the ground between me and the soldiers who were closing in.
As the grenade erupted with billowing smoke, I immediately shot wild rounds through the growing murk.
Return fire hissed overhead.
Think like a soldier, Lauren…
Once again I slowed my breathing. I needed to keep a laser-sharp focus. I threw the second smoke grenade only metres away from me.
Smoke billowed from it and swirled over me. Within seconds the world became a haze of smoke and whistling bullet rounds skimming over my head.
‘Hold your fucking fire! You’re going to hit the subject!’ Alvarez bellowed.
The sound of bullets whistled to a silence.
Now to really sow confusion among him and his soldiers. I pulled the pin on the final flashbang and lobbed it towards Alvarez’s voice.
A moment later a ball of white light pulsed in the bank of cascading smoke. Shouts and cries came from soldiers. I jumped to my feet, moving sideways, and fired a few rounds to add to the general chaos.
I glanced back at the Humvee as its squat shape disappeared down the road. Jack and Mike were going to make it. A wave of relief rushed through me as the other squad finally reached where they’d been only seconds before.
Now I needed to get out of here fast before Alvarez and his soldiers had a chance to regroup. With any luck they’d assume I’d got away in the Humvee too after I lobbed those grenades at them.
I ran my eyes over the hazy shape of the sarcophagus lying less that fifty metres away. Apart from the antigravity plate damage, miraculously it didn’t look as if it had been hit. But that didn’t help me. I was going to have to abandon the Grey. Abandon what our mission had been for. I just hoped I lived long enough for Alice to lecture me about it.
My head down, I ran sideways away from the sarcophagus as the smoke began to thin. Shapes loomed out of the fog and closed in on the Grey, weapons drawn. I dropped to the sodden ground, grateful for the curtains of rain that were helping to reduce visibility.
‘They got away in a Humvee, Colonel, but they didn’t take the subject. It’s still alive,’ a woman’s voice called out.
‘Then get after those fucking terrorists!’ Alvarez screamed.
Good, so they didn’t realise I was still here. That might give me an edge.
The bark of a heavy-calibre weapon rattled out. For an awful moment I thought I’d been spotted and I dropped flat again. But when no bullets tore through my body, I looked up to see tracer fire speeding across the lake, shredding the branches of the trees opposite to matchwood.
‘Ruby, please tell me that you’re OK?’ I whispered.
No reply came back over my earbud.
‘Ruby?’
Still nothing.
Cold dread filled my gut. If I’d listened to Alice, I wouldn’t have dropped everyone into this awful situation. I was such a headstrong stupid idiot. Part of me clung to that anger at myself. If nothing else, it helped me to blot out thoughts about what had just happened to Ruby.
A stream of Humvees sped out through the gate, their gunners pointing their M2s forward down the road where Jack had just escaped with Mike. At least they could still get away. That was all that mattered now.
Alvarez, his ears streaming with blood, turned away from the sarcophagus and walked towards the landed Astra with six of his soldiers. But I was between him and his destination. In moments he’d be right on top of me. I looked for cover – somewhere, anywhere to hide.
A long triangular shadow from the landed TR-3B Astra, cast by the arc lights, was a few metres from where I lay pressed flat into the mud. I crawled into its cover on my elbows as Alvarez and three soldiers closed in rapidly. I heard voices behind me getting louder.
Beyond the TR-3B, I spotted two pilots rushing back towards their craft with a group of engineers who’d just finished connecting the cable from the TR-3B to the harness tied round the Tic Tac.
I couldn’t be more stuck between a rock and a hard place. All it’d take was one set of eyes to see me skulking here in the shadows and that would be it.
I tore my gaze away to the ramp leading up into the TR-3B. The rational part of my brain must have glitched for a second as I found myself racing up the ramp into the belly of the craft I’d been hiding beneath.
Chapter Twenty
I tried to slow down my ragged breath as I hid inside the locker I’d chosen for cover. It wasn’t the best choice, but I’d had no time to assess anywhere else. I was crammed beside some blue flights suits and various bits of kit, having to press my body into a series of lumps and bumps. Why hadn’t I tried to take my chances and found somewhere to hide out in the ruins of the house until I could slip away? I seriously needed to have a word with the part of my brain that came up with crazy spur-of-the-moment decisions like this. In what universe was running into the TR-3B ever going to be a good idea? But I was here now and needed to make the best of it. I had to find the first opportunity to get out of here before the Astra took off.
I checked the clip in my LRS. It was half empty, although I had another full one in my bag.
Through three horizontal slits in the locker door I had a limited view of the TR-3B’s cockpit. The design was very different to Ariel’s. Rather than being spherical, three seats faced inwards towards a bank of monitors. Numerous panels of controls surrounded each of the seats, resembling the flight deck of a space shuttle more than anything else. The design was bewilderingly complex compared to the almost minimalist styling of the Ariel. It also crushed the other even more stupid idea I’d had about stealing this TR-3B and flying it out of here. I was no pilot. And, knowing my luck, I would end up crashing the craft even if I did manage to get it airborne. No, my best bet was to get off and find a much more sensible hiding place.
A movement on one of the screens, showing a live feed beneath the belly of the Astra, caught my eye as the two pilots came into view. They shook the hand of an engineer with them. Then Alvarez appeared with three of his soldiers, who were moving the sarcophagus. They must have given it a new antigravity plate. The pilots disappeared from view and a moment later I heard the clunk of feet on metal.
Shit, shit, shit!
I held my breath and tightened my grip on my LRS as the two pilots appeared in the cockpit. The first guy, taller than his colleague, looked almost like a movie cliché, he was that good-looking. With a sweep of dark hair he could have passed for a taller version of Maverick from the Top Gun films. The guy probably had a kick-arse motorbike back at home to complete his movie-like persona. In stark contrast, the shorter man had a soft, round puppy face with kind eyes, framed by a mop of dark hair that looked as if it needed a seriously good comb.
Both men were wearing blue flight suits with a US Navy emblem on the arm. They dropped into two of the seats and a clanking sound echoed from somewhere beneath. There were more footsteps and a moment later Alvarez’s head appeared at the top of the ramp, peering in at the flight crew.
‘The Grey has been loaded into your cargo bay. His condition is currently stable, but our specialists say he may go critical at any time. As soon as you’ve secured the Tic Tac, you’ll need to make it back to base as fast as possible.’
‘Understood, sir,’ the taller pilot said.
I noticed he didn’t call Alvarez ‘colonel’. Maybe the US military didn’t recognise Alvarez’s rank. Was there any significance in that?
The shorter guy turned to Alvarez. ‘You’re not catching a lift with us then, sir?’
Shit, so they were about to take off. What the hell was I going to do? If I tried to flee now the pilots would raise the alarm and I’d be captured in an instant.
Alvarez was shaking his head. ‘No, I’m still hunting down those damned terrorists. They stole one of our Humvees, but can’t have gone far.’ Alvarez nodded to the flight crew and then disappeared away down the ramp.
Still… So Jack and Mike hadn’t been caught yet. I sagged into myself as some of the tension I’d been carrying released. Please, god, make it stay that way.
The shorter guy toggled a switch on the control panel in front of him and there was a hiss of hydraulics. The slit of light from the ramp disappeared as it closed and soft blue lights turned on to illuminate the cabin.
Oh bloody hell, I’m trapped now! Instinctively I pushed myself back further into the shadows of the locker. I just hoped the pilots weren’t going to need anything fro
m it.
‘I tell you that guy gives me the creeps, Don,’ the shorter man said.
The taller guy nodded. ‘Yeah, I’ve never warmed to him. Anyway, how’s our passenger doing, Zack?’
Zack pressed one of the control panels and what looked to be a medical read-out appeared on his screen. ‘Like the man said, his vitals are low, but stable for now,’ he said.
‘Then let’s get a move on so he can have some proper medical attention. Although on second thoughts it might be better for him if he died during the flight.’
The worry about my own situation was suddenly tempered by concern for the Grey.
‘Yeah, Alvarez and his kind might deny the rumours of what they get up in Wing Twelve. But if what people say are true, the experiments they run on these captured aliens are nothing short of torture.’
‘That’s what I don’t get,’ Don said. ‘It’s like our standing orders to shoot down any UFOs we encounter. As far as I know, aliens have never once showed any hostile intent during any encounter, but we still treat them as an enemy.’
‘Unfortunately we’re not the ones who hand out the orders,’ Zack replied. ‘At least no one has picked up on the fact we haven’t hit a single one yet.’
Don grinned as he began to scan the instrumentation on his panel. ‘Yeah, such a shame.’
If how these guys was talking was typical of the other crews, this was an interesting insight. These US Navy pilots might have been following orders, but it seemed they weren’t happy about it. Maybe I could use this to my advantage, especially if they were sympathetic to the Grey. Once airborne I could hijack the craft and persuade them at gunpoint to help me? It would be an extreme gamble, but it might have a chance of working out if I explained the bigger picture to both of them.
I felt a sense of calmness taking hold. This might actually work. I just needed to wait for the right moment.
A voice came over a speaker in the cockpit. ‘Archangel, the Tic Tac ship has been secured to you. You are cleared for immediate take-off.’
‘Roger that,’ Don said.
He took hold of a complicated-looking joystick device with his right hand and placed his left on a second.