Escape 2: Fight the Aliens (26 page)

“Adjusting course,” the flying squirrel chittered. “
Tall Trees
is approaching firing position.”

Of course a laser as powerful as that on the transport would not just burn a hole through the habitat’s front wall. It would likely burn a large tunnel right through the middle of the building, with a resulting shock wave that should disorient or disable anyone inside not wearing a vacsuit.

Just before his squirrel wingman got to firing position, one part of the roof of the habitat building lifted up.

Out flew four dragonfly Aliens, each carrying laser tubes. The four split into two groups, clearing aiming to take down his two teams from above once they gained the elevation advantage.

“Stefano! Alicia! Flying enemy incoming!”

On his wrist screen, a green laser beam thick as his shoulders suddenly appeared from the southwest. It passed through the two flyers coming toward the Captives building. They vanished like steam in a hurricane.

“Out with me and fire up at the two flying Aliens!” he yelled to Chester and Learned as he jumped through the back wall hole and turned right, lifting his laser even as he spoke.

Two green beams joined his as he shot at one of the two remaining flyers.

The last flyer was impaled by the beams of Chester and Learned.

His heart beating fast at the sudden appearance of an aerial attack threat, Bill decided enough was enough.

“Builder! Blow a fucking hole through the middle of that building!”

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Thanks boss,” called Stefano as Bill ran forward toward the near corner of the habitat building. “You three had the angle on those four bastards! We didn’t due to our transports being in the way.”

“Nor did we have clear view,” moaned Long Walker as the brown-skinned worm sped across the compound ground, followed by the yellow-glow of Time Marker.

A giant green beam shot from the south and hit the middle of the ground floor of the Quonset-style habitat building.

“ZIRZAP!” echoed across the compound as a tunnel five feet wide now appeared in the middle of the building.

The upper wall and roof remnants bulged from the overpressure wave as a few tons of steel suddenly vaporized and expanded outward, pushing hot air before their metal vapor fireball.

Bill did not need his wrist screen to see Stefano’s five and Alicia’s two. Or the low forms of Time Marker and Long Walker. All three groups were out in the open and racing for the habitat walls that were still standing to the right and left of the giant hole. They knew that the giant laser strike from Builder’s transport had surely knocked out, killed or disabled any living creature still inside.

“Bill,” called Jane from orbit, “be careful going inside!”

His wife of course had seen everything that had happened down here, thanks to the tiny vidcams stuck to the combat suits of everyone.

“We
are
being careful,” he said, stopping just short of the red-glowing edges of the tunnel lasered through the habitat. The building rose twenty feet above him, but the upper floor was mostly blown out walls and windows thanks to laser shots and hover bot attacks by the teams of Stefano and Alicia. That left the bottom floor, which he guessed to have the floor space of a small mansion. He met the eyes of his nine team mates.

“People, I don’t give a damn for any survivors. Our sole objective in entering this place is to locate one or more red cube door openers so we can open the six containment cells and free the Captives inside,” he said hurriedly, noticing the black clouds of a thunderstorm moving in from the southwest. “Capturing a Buyer alive is nice for propaganda and the video Jane is making of our assault here. Any critter that looks dead, zap ‘em with your taser to make sure they cannot move. Any enemy holding a weapon is to be killed immediately. Understood?”

“Right,” said Stefano over the comlink.

“Exactly right,” Frank muttered as the man’s wide shoulders hunched under his green BDUs as he leaned forward, ready to enter the entry tunnel.

Chris, Bob, Chester and Learned nodded their understanding.

“Got you,” Alicia said as Mark stood next to her. He also nodded.

“Sounds like fun,” said their Mohawk-girl as Cassandra hefted her laser, her expression clearly hungry for enemy defeat.

The gray worm shape of Long Walker suddenly moved between Bill and the entry tunnel. Two black eyes fixed on him. “Time for us to do our part in this freedom march,” he moaned low. His front leg-hand pair held a laser tube.

The snake form of Time Marker moved up next to the worm. The Alien’s yellow electrical nimbus had expanded outward to three feet from his smooth black skin. “We will lead the entry,” he hissed. “We are low and fast. You mammals with just two legs do not move swiftly.” His neck fringe of six tentacles were wrapped around the red tube of a laser, holding it above the Alien’s head. Wherever Time Marker looked, the laser was aimed.

The action of the two Alien members of his platoon baffled Bill. He, Chester, Stefano and the others were all highly trained special forces operatives. Doing forced entry into defended locations was normal work for them. But it was clear his two crewmates had their own ideas on what should be done to take control of the building.

He gestured them toward the cooling entry hole. “Go to it, you two. And thank you for volunteering. We will follow.” He nodded at Alicia, Stefano and Frank to lead their teams. “Chester and Learned, you’re with me.”

In a flash Long Walker was into the entry tunnel, brown dirt and pebbles scattering as his claw feet bit into the compound soil. Nearly as fast was Time Marker, who moved side-by-side with his fellow ground-hugger.

Bill’s initial glance through the tunnel had shown hallways and sections of rooms leading off to the left and right. What looked like a rampway to the upper floor lay ahead, against the back wall of the habitat. The bottom three feet of the ramp had vanished into the hole burned through the building.

Inside he ran, following his two crewmates. “Alicia, take the ramp. Stefano, go right. Frank, go left. We are clean up as needed.”

In seconds the twelve of them had moved through the now cool entry tunnel, stepped over or around Alien furniture, a water basin and gone sideways in search of the Buyers and guards who might be somewhere inside.

“Got three armed bodies in here,” Stefano called over the comlink. “Dead as a doornail. Which they are full of, it seems. Two black bear critters and a single praying mantis are the IDs.”

“Two dead in here,” Frank called. “Whoah!” The sound of a taser firing came to his earbuds. “Knocked out a singleton who was just rising from the floor. Fancy room here. Could be a Buyer. Got a red cube.”

Bill ran down the tunnel, then saw Time Marker’s still form in a side room. He turned into it, then stopped suddenly.

A black web with something living inside hung just below the ceiling of the room, which had green vines and flowers all over the remaining walls. Or what must have been such, since half of the plant life was scorched black and lifeless.

“Living creature in web,” hissed Time Marker. “Possible child. Shoot?”

“Taser it!” Bill yelled, reaching for the white tube of his taser that stuck out from his backpack. “With Alien insects no way to tell what is—”

A green laser beam shot from within the web.

It hit Bill’s left shoulder, passed through his innards and exited out over his right hip.

The pain was excruciating.

A yellow lightning bolt shot up from Time Marker’s body and hit the web-held creature, turning it to crispy something.

“Stefaanooo! Take charge,” he moaned as sudden blood pressure loss pulled gray clouds over his eyes and blocked his control of his muscles. As awareness faded, he cursed his luck that his chest and back plates could not stop a laser beam fired from overhead.
Need to do something about that
, he thought.

He died then.

♦   ♦   ♦

She looked down at the white clamshell healer unit. She was alone in the Med Hall Chamber of the
Blue Sky
, having sent away Alicia, Frank, Stefano, Learned, Time Marker, Long Walker and other members of the combat team that had liberated six Captives held in a compound on the southern land mass. She had used the video of their successful assault in a final broadcast to the other eleven hold-out compounds. She’d repeated the ‘your life for releasing the Captives’ offer, then given her ultimatum. She would laser everything in the eleven compounds that was bigger than a soccer ball, including the buildings where Captives were held. It had gone against her hopes and the whole reason for their takeover of the Market world, but she was not about to pay more dead as the price of liberty for an unknown number of Captives.

She already had one dead.

The video and the ferocity of the attack by Bill, Stefano, Alicia, Frank, Time Marker, Long Walker and the others had done the final convincing. All eleven hold-outs, including the three in the city on the northern land mass, had signaled their surrender. Laser mounts had gone power dead, all defensive sensors had shut off and, when she dispatched the other three transports to those compounds, recovery of 20 more Captives from white containment cells had gone smoothly.

None of it made up for what she had lost. Or might have lost. She looked at the green, yellow and blue lights twinkling on the side of the clamshell healer.

“Bill, are you alive in there?”

He had not been alive in any real sense when Builder of Joy, flying his transport like a rocket out of hell, had carried Bill’s body up to orbit. On board was Learned Escape who gave her husband energetic CPR. The rest of the team was also there, ready to run Bill’s body down the ship hallways and to this Med Hall.

Thanks to the squirrel’s insane flying, less than five minutes had passed since Bill had been lasered through his left shoulder, across his left lung, through his heart, then out his right kidney. Alicia had stopped his bleeding with hasty wound binding as she ripped his NWUs apart to get pressure against his entry and exit wounds. Course, even the later addition of an oxy mask over her beloved’s mouth as Learned pressed on his chest could not do much when there was no heart beat to move blood to his brain. Still, she knew from her own Air Force aid courses that repeated chest pressing not only forced air into his lungs, with enriched blood going out along arteries and blood vessels, but it could substitute for cases where there was no heart-lung machine or electroshock paddles. Electroshock was not right for someone with a heart holed in two spots, with inner valves cauterized by the laser beam.

“Bill, is the magic happening yet?” she murmured, hoping against hope that the Alien machine could do the wonder of healing Bill’s heart, kidney, lung and the flesh between those vital organs. Once they had Bill inside the machine, it acted to ensure blood circulation to his brain.

She recalled their wedding in orbit above the Megun home world of Harken, a green jungled place with two big oceans that was filled with friendly, caring and very smart people. Bright Sparkle had arranged for the ceremony to be done in the observation dome of one of their orbital stations dedicated to vacationers and newlyweds. Passing through the station’s tapestried and painted hallways had been a joy as they passed dozens of other couples, each holding hands like she and Bill did often. They’d drawn looks of curiosity, then friendly waves as they were recognized as the humans from Earth. When they got to the observation dome, a civil ceremony magistrate had met them. She had been an imposing woman, older with streaks of gray in her black hair, but her green eyes had been merry as she went over the vows she and Bill had written together. While their personal beliefs were different, they knew they wanted to be pledged together for life. So it had happened, to celestial music played by musician friends of Sparkle as other Megun attendees threw flower petals over them, thanks to Learned’s efforts to share that Megun ritual with them.

Their honeymoon in the far northern temperate zone of Harken had been glorious as they awoke in a glass-walled room that looked out on a waterfall tumbling down between five hundred foot high granite walls. The site was the safest place on a world still roamed by gigantic dinosaur-like creatures. While the Megun people had long ago conquered that wildlife, the creatures were kept alive in large reserves, to serve as Rite of Passage experiences for Megun youth. Their week there had been wonderful, intimate and delightful as she learned more about Bill’s childhood, youth and why he had chosen to enlist, then aim for the SEALs. While their love was filled with frequent passion, it was learning how much they shared in their views on life and their mutual interest in puzzle games that had further cemented their togetherness.

“Captain,” hummed Star Traveler. “The healer unit has completed its cycle. It will be opening . . . soon.”

She licked dry lips. “How is he?”

“His heart is fully repaired, as are his kidney, lung and other tissue. He has a strong and normal heart beat,” the AI said, its tone sounding almost sympathetic.

“I meant, will he be aware of me? Is his brain working?”

A low hum came. “Sensors of this healer unit indicate normal brain rhythms and neuro-muscular responses. As for the quality of his mentation, ask him when he awakens.”

In front of her the clamshell healer gave a hiss, then a black line appeared between the upper and lower halves. The top half rose slowly, cool white light escaping from within. On top of a white pebbled pad lay her Bill. Naked as the day he had been born. There was no sign of the ugly red entry holes left by the laser beam. His chest now rose as he inhaled sharply. But his eyelids were closed.

“Bill? Bill! Talk to me!”

♦   ♦   ♦

Sound came to him. He could not figure out the meaning of the sound. Was it . . . music? A car motor? Something exploding? He recalled several explosions had happened near him, very recently. There had been no fear at the explosions, just a sense of satisfaction at a job well done. But what job? He . . . was Bill. He was . . . a fighter trained to help people, to rescue people, to harm enemies of his . . . yes! The United States of America. He was a SEAL trained to do deadly work. Which, he now recalled, he had been doing on a far distant world, supported by his saloon buddies and three weird-looking Aliens. They’d been attacking a compound where Aliens lived who bought and sold people as slaves. He’d followed his people into the tunnel cut into the building by a giant laser beam. Then he’d noticed the walking snake Alien stopped in a side room. He’d entered, seen, heard and—

“Bill! Answer me!”

Jane? His Jane was nearby? She could be in danger. He had to protect her! He squinted against the glow of whiteness, then opened his eyes.