Alien Alliance (19 page)

Stella and Li continued to watch the
Hoekfyds, but they were shocked to see the Avians fall out of the
sky as the smoke hit them. Her eyes following one stricken bird
down, Li saw to her horror that the animals in the paddocks were
all lying still where the smoke had passed over them. She pointed
and yelled, “Stop!!!”

Donny stopped and looked up at her tone but
Mahmoud dipped down laughing into the smoke as some wisped past
below him. Instantly, he collapsed, precariously balanced on a
branch and sliding down. Donny scrambled down and grabbed him as
the girls quickly followed.

Stella reached him and automatically felt
for his pulse. It was going. She checked his breathing and couldn’t
detect any.

“He’s not breathing!” She yelled and slapped
his face. No response. She yelled at him and punched him. Silence.
She checked his pulse again but it was going OK. “Hold him for me!”
She yelled and started artificial respiration as her mother had
taught her. The others propped him flattish on a branch and Stella
continued. She checked his pulse again. It had stopped.

It had taken some time to get organised
after the sickness of the night before and the ‘interrogation’ as
some put it, lead by Sally and Ludmilla. So it was mid afternoon
before most got organised and thoughts returned to their main
predicament. Mathew and some of his Toadies were heading into one
of the lecture halls when Sarah and Alan headed them off.

"I want to talk to you," said Sarah to
Mathew, "there are things that need to be decided and you can't
keep running away from your problems all your life."

"Don't be impertinent," spluttered Mathew,
and tried to push past her, with a notable lack of success as Sarah
kept moving in front of him.

"We have a mass of problems. You are either
going to start acting like a decent leader or I will officially
take the leadership off you. Is that clear enough or do you want me
to repeat it?"

"Don't be ridiculous. You can do no such
thing. I was chosen as the leader here…"

“No you weren’t! You assumed it. If you want
to be the leader then act like it you stupid fool! Show some
leadership skills instead of political grandstanding."

Mathew drew himself up to reply when the
communicators they were all using suddenly burst into life. The
mechanical voice announced,

"There have been simultaneous attacks on
many cities. Unmarked planes are gassing the cities."

Sarah and the others instinctively looked up
to see five planes heading down slowly towards the city. They
seemed to be gliding. A fine mist was spraying out behind them like
smoke from an aerial display. They were overlapping but unable to
cover the city in one sweep. Sarah and Alan started to
instinctively move towards the more senior of the aliens which were
away from the flight path of the planes. Their communicators picked
up random comments as they moved,

"Bound to happen…unaligned planets…a risk…we
should have left by now…" The aliens milled around in a confused
fashion.

"What should we do?" Sarah asked one of the
aliens.

"Nothing we can do. They'll kill all of
us."

"No one knows who they are," said
another.

"No one has ever survived to tell who they
are."

"Stuff this! I'm not just going to stand
here and get gassed. Come on," and Alan grabbed Sarah's arm and
started to run to the nearest building. As they neared it another
group of Terrans came running out with two Priskya's on their
trolleys.

"Follow us!" yelled one of them. "The
Priskya's say the gas dissolves over water!" Sarah and Alan changed
course and helped with the trolleys. Some of the Terrans went back
for another two Priskya. In seconds a rescue was underway as the
Terrans headed for the sea via the areas out of the flight path of
the planes. They watched in horror as the gas hit the first of the
Aliens they could see. As they watched, they simply keeled over and
hit the ground. The Terrans ran faster but Alan was puffing and
struggling. Virtually the only noise was being made by the Terrans
and the trolleys. All else was silent including the planes.

Alan let go of the trolley as Anne grabbed
if off him and said, "Just run! Into the water. Swim as far and as
fast as you can!" Anne ran ahead of him as he struggled to catch
his breath.

As they ran, the planes overtook them,
reached the sea, lifted up into the air and circled around heading
back up the hill behind the city. The gas flow had stopped from
them, but the gas they had released had knocked over or killed
everything it touched. Sarah wondered which. She reached the jetty,
ran the trolley straight into the sea and Anne came beside her and
hit some switches on the side. The "sub" opened and the Priskya
swam into the midst of the Terrans.

"Head for the sea," it said, knocking Sarah
away from fallen People.

Most started to swim out but Sarah took time
for a quick look and headed for one of the boats. She ran beside
it, yanked at the mooring catches on the side and yelled to the
Terrans to get onto it. She ran for another as Alan puffed up
beside her. He looked terrible. His lips were blue.

"Get on the boat!" She yelled. "Help some of
the others," and headed for another boat as he did so. As she freed
another boat, she realised she didn't know how to power them up but
noticed that Alan did. The boat headed off away from the jetty and
stopped.

"Get going!" She yelled.

"Tie the boats together!" He yelled back. "I
don't think anyone else knows how to power them!"

She saw the sense in that and they
manoeuvred the boats together with some difficulty. Alan attached a
rope to the stern of his boat and threw it to Sarah.

"At least I know my knots," she yelled,
attached it and dived overboard for another boat. By this time Alan
had been joined by several others, mostly Terrans, who scrambled on
board. Most of the other Terrans were swimming out to sea.

The planes could be seen in the distance
heading back to the city. Sarah unfastened one more small open boat
seeing more Terrans off on that. Then she unhitched a larger one
and wondered what to do with it. She looked behind her and saw the
ships looming up directly behind her. Hearing a movement above she
looked up as a Clet landed on board. Its Translator chattered.

"I will tell you how to start the boat. Go
to the rear of the boat."

Quickly Sarah complied, fighting the urge to
panic. "Now what?"

"Slap the square blue label." Sarah complied
and a deep throb could be heard. "Now grab that bar and turn it the
way you want to go, away from the flight path."

Fear made Sarah's understanding sluggish but
she got it in seconds that seemed like hours. The little craft
headed out to sea, away from the flyer's smoke trail.

"Run your finger down the long blue label.
It will go faster." She did and it did. She looked ahead for people
in the water, slowing down clumsily to allow them to get on board,
then rapidly speeding up. Behind her she saw another small boat
piloted by a child. It was coming up fast. It went past her, then
stopped to pick up a swimmer. Sarah's boat passed hers, then
stopped to pick up the next one. Sarah noticed that it was Alia
piloting it. Alia was about ten years old! The two boats kept
going, alternately picking up swimmers until Alia seemed to panic
and headed for the open sea.

Sarah didn't blame her. The Translator
clattered.

"Go fast. Gas comes." Sarah did as she was
told, figuring it was better to save the seven Terrans and one Clet
she had on board. She struggled to control the boat as it got up to
speed and almost flew through the water. Behind her, the planes
lifted up and headed around back to the hills above the city.

As the planes turned and came back down from
the hills for their third sweep over the city, Mathew stood with
some of the others. Mathew felt torn between wanting to be accepted
by the Aliens and a burning desire to escape the gas. The Aliens
seemed to be stoically waiting to die. He saw the gas coming
towards him. Suddenly he started to run. His stocky frame put on a
sizable turn of speed as he headed for the sea. He ran faster and
faster. He hit the water at a dead run and dived in. The gas was
coming up relentlessly behind him. He swam in a fast crawl, shoes,
clothes and all, as the gas came up and washed over him. He dived
under the water and swam dolphin fashion coming up for gasps of
air. But he slowed down, and finally surfaced out of the gas but
coughing and spluttering. Ludmilla had seen him and brought her
boat around as her passengers picked him up. He continued to fight
for breath and his face was a pasty colour. She kept circling for a
few minutes but they found no one else so she headed back out to
sea to where the other boats were congregating. She wondered how
many had survived and what the Aliens attackers would do now.

Sarah had finally slowed down and turned
back to where some of the other boats were coming together. There
turned out to be 13 boats in total here. Sarah could see some more
in the distance. Some were moving away from the city, down the
coast. Sarah quickly took control and said,

"Tie all the boats together." She looked
around and counted 31 people. She looked to see who was in the
boats but could see no medical doctors. She called out, "Is there a
medical doctor anywhere?" No one answered.

"I'm a nurse," called out a voice. "Can I
help?"

"Yes please. Can you get over here?"

"On my way."

A few minutes later a plump, elderly woman
arrived on a fairly skilfully piloted boat. Sarah looked at her and
realized it was Sally Easton.

"Who's in trouble?" Sally asked.

"Mathew. He got caught in the gas," and she
gestured Sally to him.

"Can you describe how your breathing feels?
Is there pain, restriction, pressure?"

"Feels like asthma. Can't breathe. Not
painful. Hell of an effort."

Sally looked at him carefully. His face was
pale and his forehead, lips and nose were blue. His fingers were
blue too and he was yawning. This was not good. He wasn’t getting
enough oxygen. He was trying to use all his accessory muscles to
breathe. Well she could help with that. Carefully, with Sarah's
help, she got onto the boat with him and moved him positioning him
so he was sitting up with his arms draped up over a piece of
fishing apparatus that looked a bit like a small table.

"His pulse is 146, respiration rate 45 and
very shallow, blood pressure feels high but I don't have a
sphygmomanometer to check it," Sally observed. He was also sweating
profusely.

"Any better?"

"A bit."

"Is your breathing getting better, getting
worse or just the same?"

Mathew thought. "Got worse for a while. Not
so bad now. Still bad though."

"Yes I can see that. I don't know what kind
of a poison it is or how to treat it but you're still alive. How
come? Did you breathe the gas?

"Held my breath. Didn't think…I breathed
any. Must have." He looked puzzled.

"Well you're still breathing. That, and the
fact that it seems to be easing, looks hopeful. I'll stay with
you."

Sarah left her to it and got organising,
bringing the boats together to see who was alive and what they
could plan.

"We need to appoint a leader on all the
boats, get family members back together, organise one or more
people to look after each child or injured person. Anyone else sick
or injured?"

A series of "No’s" came back.

"Anyone got any food or drink?"

Another chorus of "No" came back.

"Well we can drink sea water on this planet
and thank heavens for that or we'd be in real trouble. I don't
suppose anyone heard any aliens identifying the planes? Anyone know
who's doing the attacking?"

Another chorus of "No".

Sarah was looking around and trying to think
what she should be doing when there were screams and people looked
behind her.

There was a plane heading directly for
them.

Mathew struggled to his feet.

"Over the side," he gasped. "Get into water.
Hold your breath…when the gas comes at you. Leave it till you smell
it," and he flopped over the side into the water.

"Get into the water!" Yelled Sarah who had a
lot more volume. She repeated his instructions. The plane was
nearly on them. She dived into the water, surfaced, looked up.

Sally yelled out, "Start breathing deep!
Biggest breaths you can! Force the air into your lungs till you're
dizzy! Quickly! It'll mean you can hold your breath longer! I'll
tell you when to get under the water and don't go under till I tell
you! If you come up too soon and breathe the gas it'll kill
you!"

Fighting despair and panic, Sarah looked
around and saw that they were all obeying Sally's instructions.
Just then she saw Simone with Dieter. She ran into the boat's
cabin.

"Oh God help her," prayed Sarah in despair
knowing the cabins weren't airtight or anything like it.

Gas started to spray out behind the flyer as
it got closer.

"Wait! Yelled Sally. "Get those people up!"
She watched as several people dived for the ones who had already
gone under, bringing them up.

"Wait!" she yelled. "Keep deep breathing!
Wait!" Then at last, "Dive! Dive! Dive!” and they all went under
together.

Sarah stayed just under the water and
watched the gas go overhead. Her lungs started to struggle. She
stayed down and noticed that the gas was thinning but would it be
fast enough? "Mathew won't survive this," she thought. "His lungs
must be a mess already."

She noticed that a few others had surfaced
and in despair she saw one near her promptly go under again. She
prayed that that person wasn't dead. She stayed down until her
lungs felt like bursting and she was near to blacking out. Coming
up and gasping in air, she saw quite a lot of people up and
apparently O.K. She saw that Sally had just come up too. She noted
with amusement that Sally at once took charge, demanded a count,
wanted to know if anyone was having trouble breathing. She guessed
nurses must be used to dealing with crises.