Alien Alliance (51 page)

Tasha was firing rapidly. She was an
excellent shot. Reloading she ripped her last glove. She stopped
firing. But she was surrounded by targets. She sat and thought
about what she and the older kids had discussed in secret. Every
one she got would be one less for the others to kill. It could save
lives. Maybe her mother. It could even influence the outcome. She
reloaded and restarted, touching the deadly blue toxin with her
bare hands. The poison started to be absorbed through her skin and
travelled to her arteries and her veins. It reached her heart and
lungs and started to course through her body. She wondered how long
it would be. She kept firing. It was a lot easier and faster to
load without the home made gloves. She was getting more of
them.

In the city designated City 37 by the
Keulfyd, Harsha was also doing well. She was keeping count. She had
hit 16 so far that she was sure of. Maybe more. Mathew would be
pleased. They were now nearly two hours into the attack. They all
knew that the more they killed before the attack started, the less
of them would die in the actual attack. She lined up on a
Yakkidimux. She hit it as it walked past. It turned around and saw
her blowgun or heard the puff of the compressed gas. It came over!
Frantically, she reloaded with a red ball but her father was
watching her as Rani was watching Bella. Ali leaped up with a yell.
The rest of the Terrans were seconds behind him as Kaz called out
“Attack! Attack!” through the communicator as he leapt up, Stella a
split second behind him and Kelly with her. The Yakkidimux was hit
by multiple red balls and crashed to the ground.

Quickly, they formed their predetermined
pattern. Ali was in front, to the right, Kaz covering him and
Stella covering his rear. Kelly went out to the left with Sarah
covering her rear. They headed for the armoury. Mahmoud and Tue
took cover and watched for the Relogs or any one else who fought
back.

Harsha knew at this stage to stay still and
quiet as should Donny. She covered her eyes and tried to cover her
ears as well. She did not want to know what was happening now. She
was out of sight of Donny but knew he planned to go and fight. That
would leave her all alone if they lost. She shivered, racked with
guilt at being discovered. If they lost it would be all her
fault!

Donny was not happy with being designated a
child’s role. He was determined to stick with his plan, not
Mathew’s. He loaded up with the red balls and ran carefully up the
street determined to fight like an adult. It wasn’t fair. The
others his age were fighting and Li was smaller than him and a
girl!

The Cats split up, roughly half with each
group but some were just creating chaos and general mayhem and
thoroughly enjoying the payback. They were messy. They made a very
thorough job of it. They didn’t understand the concept of prisoners
or surrender.

Ali moved fast through the city. Finally
someone started firing back. A Cat squalled as it was hit badly.
Three other Cats promptly attacked the Relog responsible. It died a
spectacular death; torn apart. The armoury was close by and guarded
only by two Relogs. Both had come out to see what was happening and
were promptly hit with the blowguns. Already sick, they collapsed.
Everyone loaded up with field standard weapons with relief. Now
they could fight properly! They dropped the blowguns and headed out
leaving two Cats and Kelly as the guards. Kelly was not happy but
Ali had insisted because they needed her as a pilot as well as a
doctor. Kelly jammed the door closed and sat down to wait,
fidgeting nervously. Waiting, was not her thing. She worried about
Stella and Li. The Cats weren’t happy either. They knew Ali had
picked on them to remain because they were injured. All three were
grumpy, irritable and unhappy. Kelly moved over to treat their
wounds.

Ali and the others dropped the guns off to
Mahmoud and Tue, and to Donny who had come running up. Ali didn’t
say anything to Donny. They needed him. As they turned to where the
sentries quarters were they saw Relogs coming and dived into the
dubious cover of doorways and several vehicles parked in the
streets. They opened fire on the Relogs who promptly retaliated
from the cover of some other vehicles. Ali signalled to Sarah,
Stella and Kaz who were in the doorways, to get into the buildings
and up. The three leapt up the ramps and across the corridor coming
up behind and above the Relogs. Perfectly positioned, lying flat on
the Avian landing pad, Stella and Kaz fired down. Ali signalled
again that there were eight of them. Sarah, who was in a window,
fired at the nearest, who jerked and dropped its’ weapon. Stella
and Kaz took out another two but the rest of the Relogs must have
got up into the buildings on the other side of the street as fire
erupted from a window opposite narrowly missing Stella. Kaz and
Stella leapt up and inside the building landing flat on the floor
while Sarah fired back at the Relogs to keep their heads down.

“Wait here,” ordered Kaz and got up to get
to a window.

“Not bloody likely,” muttered Stella and ran
after him as several shots landed in her vicinity. She ducked and
rolled behind Kaz who turned around, furious. She smiled
mischievously up at him, leaned up and kissed him, then rolled
under the window to the other side so she could fire out too.

He muttered, “They’re using field standard,
but watch out for anything else. They could have grenades or
incendiaries. They can’t use blasters, we’re too far away.”

Stella nodded. She’d noticed their stuffed
jacket pockets. She sighed. Pity it wasn’t their lunch, she
thought. Looking down, she squeezed off several more shots, pretty
sure she’d got one. Aiming for another, she could see only its leg
so aimed and fired there. But there were at least two Relogs firing
from the building opposite and every time a bit of Stella or Kaz
was exposed, shots were fired back. Meanwhile Sarah had moved.
Stella didn’t know where until a Relog opposite got hit. Good idea.
Stella rolled along the floor one way as Kaz rolled the other way
both cursing the low windows and the Relogs above. Mathew had
lectured them not to let the enemy get the high ground.

Down on the road, where Tue, Donny and
Mahmoud had been, was an ominous silence but fire started again
from yet another building aimed at the Relogs. Someone was still
alive. And then Stella heard what must be Sarah firing. She must be
firing, then moving. As Stella moved to fire again, she noticed
there was no sound coming from the ground.

“Kaz,” she whispered, “either the Relogs on
the ground have moved or they’re on their way here.”

Kaz looked up. He indicated for silence and
they both listened carefully. All had gone quiet. Stella looked out
and saw Ali moving cautiously along the street, moving from cover
to cover. Something moved under a vehicle and he shot at it.
Another shot was heard but it was from one of them, hitting yet
another Relog that had moved. Sarah was proving bloody good at
this, thought Stella.

“That’s all of them.” yelled Ali. “Stella,
get down here fast.”

Not liking the sound of that, Stella went at
a run assuming someone was hit bad. She was still cautious and had
her weapon at the ready. Reaching Ali, she looked down. Tue was
quiet, blood seeping from what looked like one wound in his chest
and another in his thigh. She ripped out her dressing kit.
Thankfully, he was unconscious. Donny and Mahmoud, who had hardly
got off a shot before being pinned down, looked at each other in
embarrassment and followed Ali, determined to do better.
Separately, both now understood Mathew’s instructions to get to
high ground when under fire.

“Stay with him,” ordered Ali to Stella and
the rest re grouped and headed for their next objective, the
headquarters building. Looking after them, Stella noticed several
Cats coming out of the building the Relogs had been in. So that was
what happened to the Relogs there. The Cats were bloody but were
moving as if the blood wasn’t theirs. She had wondered where the
Cats had gone. They must have circled around and entered the
building from the rear. Clever. Funny how most Aliens she had seen
bleeding so far had all pretty much the same coloured blood. Was it
because they were all carbon based life forms? Did all blood have
iron in it to colour it red? She realised part of her mind was
ignoring what she was doing to Tue’s horrific wounds. But he had
stopped bleeding. The blaster had cauterised the wound. He would
need to be flown out. Stella finished bandaging him and looked at
him. There was nothing else she could do. Carefully, she rolled him
under a vehicle and propped him on his side. She removed his weapon
so it couldn’t be used on him and ran after the others.

*

Ali and his Team set their weapons to kill
and headed for the headquarters building. The blow guns had been
dropped. They had done their job well. City 37’s takeover was going
well. As Ali burst into the building, all the Aliens within either
surrendered or looked stunned.

Good idea. “Stun,” yelled Ali as he changed
the weapon’s setting. Within less than two minutes, all the Aliens
were out cold and no further risk for a while.

As in all four cities the attack began
openly with the adults pouring into the streets firing at any
target. The Cats were ahead of them, using teeth and claws,
inflicting nasty and often fatal injuries. The hidden snipers
stopped firing as they had been told. This was to avoid detection
and keep them safe and to prevent friendly fire. But Tasha didn’t
see the point. It didn’t matter if she was seen and she knew she
was dying. She was a little dizzy and her eyesight was blurring.
She felt a floaty feeling creeping through her body. She continued
to fire but changed to the red balls. She remembered to ‘identify
your target’ as Mathew had taught them but she was struggling to
concentrate. She smiled sleepily and got two before she died. It
was quick, due to the massive dose she had had.

*

In city 72, Az took his small team and
headed for the armouries. With him were Li, Ludmilla, Helene and
Mathew. Helene was in front, on the right, being the fastest
runner. Az also went to the right, Li covering his back. Ludmilla
took left with Mathew covering her back. Scattered among the
Terrans were 25 Cats. Most had come with Az. They were hard to see
as they were fast and natural hunters, flitting from shadow to
shadow. Az followed Helene’s lead hating women being in a fight. It
felt so wrong. His eyes rapidly scanned ahead. Nervously, he looked
up at the windows in the skyscrapers on his left. If Relogs got up
there… He cursed the small range of the blowguns. They virtually
wouldn’t shoot up more than ten feet. Useless. Suddenly he saw a
Yakkidimux but before he could react he heard Li’s blowgun and saw
it look puzzled and fall a few seconds later. He saw another
Yakkidimux, then another behind it coming up behind Helene. He
didn’t notice that they weren’t armed.

“Stay here!” he ordered Li and sprinted
after Helene. He felt something zip past him and leapt into a
doorway near Helene. Hearing something behind him, he whipped his
cumbersome blowgun around as Li skidded in behind him. He glared at
her. She smiled sweetly back. He checked for Helene and turned back
to Li. Horrified, he saw her side was bleeding. But she was aiming
and fired, just as Helene did. One Yakkidimux fell, hit twice as
two Cats dealt to the other. They disembowelled it and left it
screaming. Az finished it off. He turned back to Li. She was
applying a field dressing, then indicated she was OK. He noticed
her arm was injured too and she had dressed that as well. He tried
to check her but she glared at him. Az looked past her to the
street and saw several Relogs coming at a run. He had wondered what
had hit Li.

*

The second team of Mathew’s command were
Minka, Simone, Anne and Julia. They were watching for the Relog
sentries. As taught by Mathew, they were all looking in different
directions and well under cover. Their job was to cover the Team
headed for the armoury so they were placed to be between the
Relog’s sentry quarters and the armoury.

At the armoury in this city, City 72, there
were two Relogs on guard, but both were sick thanks to the
blowguns. They were there on light duties. One could hardly see.
Helene shoved open the door, Az and Li behind her. As Helene shot
one, Li and Az got the other. Quickly they changed their weapons to
field standard. This was much better. These were short guns with
three modes of fire, stun, full power and spray, which was stun
only. Their range was up to a mile depending on the setting. Spray,
reduced the range to about 200 feet. What a comparison from the
blowguns range of 15 to 20 feet! They were short at just under two
feet and easy to handle unlike the cumbersome blow guns. They all
grabbed a handful and ran to distribute them. Ludmilla was left
behind to prevent the Aliens rearming.

She quickly checked the Relogs and finished
one off with her knife. A Cat sat down beside her. She organized
herself, dragging the sentries inside then cleaned up the mess. She
manually pulled the sliding door closed, jamming it so it wouldn’t
open. Puffing, she sat down to wait with the two dead Relogs and
the Cat as company. She looked at the Cat, belatedly noticing it
was injured, then pulled out her medical kit and tended to it, then
herself, surprised to notice several injuries. They started to
hurt. She took some Paracetamol figuring she could add morphine
later if she needed it. She smiled wryly. One seldom noticed
injuries until the action stopped. Sometimes quite serious ones as
she remembered well. It had been a long time since she was in
combat but one didn’t forget.

So in city 72, events were also going well.
Mathew was enjoying himself. “You girls look out for the Relogs,”
he said muttering, “where the bloody Hell are they?” As his
re-equipped team headed for the area designated Headquarters by the
Cats, they fired as they broke in. Those inside promptly
surrendered. Those that were alive and capable.