Illegal Aliens (14 page)

The three linear miles of street that surrounded Central Park were jammed full of boisterous people just aching to get closer to the giant white spaceship, but the diligent NATO troops firmly kept the civilians at bay by the efficient use of sandbags, concertina wire and a thousand armed troops with orders to shoot any troublemakers. After a few unpleasant instances, the crowd quickly learned control.

Patiently waiting behind their defensive perimeter, the UN soldiers watched as a sweating New York City police officer slowly shambled down a bike trail towards them. In his oddly twisted left hand, he held an ordinary briefcase. With his right hand, he was dragging the limp body of an Army Intelligence officer behind him, the unconscious man's shoe heels gouging twin tracks in the loose gravel on the ground.

General Nicholi's orders strictly forbade anybody but authorized personnel from setting foot in the park, so the NATO troops stayed exactly where they were. But once the bloody couple stepped onto the sidewalk they were within UN jurisdiction. Exercising extreme care, the soldiers relieved the crippled policeman of his attaché case, and then bodily carried both of the battered men to a waiting military ambulance.

The briefcase surreptitiously shifted into the hands of another nuclear agent, who deactivated the weapon and deftly tucked it inside a specially designed compartment of his pushcart, never pausing in his sale of ice cream sandwiches to the civilian onlookers.

A random pair of UN soldiers in the cordon around the park holding back the crowd of civilian onlookers watched this operation to completion. Then the Canadian private idly scratched under his helmet and spoke to the British corporal next to him. “Hey, Sam, what do you think that was, eh?”

“Beats me, Dave,” the woman soldier said, shifting her assault rifle to a more comfortable position. “Maybe that Army guy was actually a nuclear secret agent sent to destroy the alien ship, and the cop was a counter-agent sent in to stop him. The two of them battled it out with the lives of everyone in Manhattan hanging in the balance and just in the nick of time the cop decks the army blighter, saving us from dying in an atomic fireball.”

The man paused for a moment, drinking in what his friend had said. Yeah, ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.

FOURTEEN

With 30 minutes left till lunch, the triumphant Deckers spent the remaining time getting further acquainted with the operation of the starship. Of course, the Proton Cannon (the only weapon the ship carried) was the first item on their agenda. The Deckers spent a joyous few minutes vaporizing trees and benches about the ship as they learned how to aim and fire its deadly beam. Central Park was fast resembling Dresden after the bombing.

Then there was a tug on Trell's uniform, and Chisel asked him where the john was. After a confused moment or two, the alien got the general idea and sent the boy down the hall to the left. Trell also instructed him to be sure to press his palm firmly against a square metal plate next to the door so the facilities could adjust themselves to his lifeform. With a nod, the boy departed. A few minutes later somebody resembling Chisel walked back into the control room. But this was obviously an impostor because this Chisel was clean, from the tips of his polished black boots, to his neatly trimmed, coiffured hair. The food stains were gone from his T-shirt, its rips expertly sewn shut, the toolbox design on his black leather jacket looked newly painted and even the boy's buck teeth gleamed healthily.

Dumbfounded, Hammer and Drill asked what the heck had happened to him? Chisel replied that he walked into the bathroom and it bit him. Upon closer inspection, it seemed that the boy and everything he wore was spotlessly, almost antiseptically, clean. Even his knives had been sharpened.

To the gang's puzzled demands for information, Trell had no answer. It was a bathroom. What did theirs do?

As excited as kids at Christmas, Hammer and Drill dashed off to try this technological marvel for themselves, returning in a short while scrubbed, washed, polished, pressed, and thoroughly clean to the bone. A condition that none of the gang had ever been in before. It was kinda nice.

As the laughing Deckers examined each other's laudable condition, Trell took this opportunity to re-tune the tech stations in the control room to their new masters: Hammer as Leader, Drill as Protector, himself as Engineer, and Chisel as Communicator; as the communication board was partially sentient and did most of the work by itself.

Deciding how to ferry the tribute on board turned into a lengthy discussion. Hammer insisted that since he and his gang had been teleported aboard the starship, so should the tribute.

Trell argued against that on the grounds that the tribute would be much more massive then six Dirtlings, ah, humans, he quickly corrected himself. The equipment couldn't handle that large a load in one shot and the device took a hundred thousand seconds to recharge.

Much too long. Better to lower the force shield for a moment, let the trucks across the boundary and then raise it again. For those few seconds everybody would be watching for trickery, with Drill's ready finger on the Proton Cannon's firing switch. Grudgingly, Hammer agreed. It was a gamble, but the Bloody Deckers had taken bigger risks than this just going to the movies on 42nd Street.

If lunch was late, or the UN tried anything stupid again, Drill resolved that the first building to go would be the city hall. Or better yet, police headquarters!

Trell noted a meter flux and focused his scanners onto the indicated area. “Sir, there's a large party approaching our ship from sector 12,” he announced.

“Show me,” Hammer commanded, reclining in his form-fitting chair. His viewscreen swirled into a picture of the war-torn park.

Meandering through the mountains of dirt, splintered trees, and glowing lava pools, was a conga line of vehicles headed by four silver limousines, followed by several armored bank trucks and flatbed wagons filled with bales and bales of a leafy, dark green material.

“Yee-HAW!” Drill whooped, exuberantly smacking the adamantine arm of his steel chair. “It's a freaking parade! Goddamn it chief, the government is actually paying us off!”

“There's our gold,” Chisel whispered, the illuminated controls of the tech station brightening in harmony with its master's heightened emotional state. “Gold.”

No, not one bank truck, Hammer noted with misgivings, but a convoy of five. He didn't like that. There was too much stuff out there. Much more then they’d asked for. Some subtle instinct, honed true in a thousand street fights, warned the youth of treachery, but for the life of him the ganglord couldn't figure out from where.

“This is more tribute then you asked for, isn't it, sir?” Trell asked, twisting about in his seat. “Are your people trying to—” and the alien spoke of a practice common to his race of giving a victorious enemy many gifts to soften their feelings towards you. His translator merely said the word: “Bribe.”

After a moment, Hammer nodded. Yeah, that made sense. The world was scared spitless of his gang and they were trying to buy the Deckers’ goodwill. The government was always paying people lots of money to behave themselves. It never seemed to work, but they kept trying. Greedily, he rubbed his hands together. Well, he certainly appreciated the habit!

“Trell, steer them over to the loading bay and prepare to lower the force shield.” Hammer scrutinized the caravan of goodies closely. “You sure the loading dock can hold all of that junk?”

“Easily sir. Vehicles included.”

“No problem?”

“None.”

Drill's face broke into a grin. “Shee-eet! Our own personal bank trucks! Say! Could we . . . ” The locksmith stopped talking in mid-syllable, his mouth and eyes forming a triangle of circles. Hammer and Chisel swiftly followed suit.

The caravan had reached the assigned spot outside the alien force shield and the drivers were disembarking. Women. They were all women. Beautiful women. Gorgeous women. Redheads. Blondes. Slim, long-legged, busty women who were mostly dressed in lacy bits of gossamer that hid none of their ample charms.

Timidly, a few of the women waved at the starship. Then a gorgeous redhead in a micromesh bikini bent over to examine something from the ground and the three males swallowed hard.

“Damn,” Drill murmured in awe. “Now that's what I call tribute!”

Chisel tried to close his mouth, while Hammer removed his tongue from the viewscreen. Trell also observed the scene with interest. Ah, lunch!

“L-lower that force shield,” Hammer ordered, the ganglord having trouble speaking. “Get that, those, get them aboard!”

“Women,” Chisel said, drooling slightly. “Hubba-hubba.”

“Oh, we par-ty tonight!” Drill stated for a fact.

Unaffected by the display of shapely human females, the alien Technician remained ever vigilant, his sensors constantly sweeping the starship's perimeter, as he carefully lowered their main defense.

* * *

A dry twig propped against the force shield fell to the ground, and the crudely built black box in the hand of a NATO trooper beeped.

“The shield is down, sir,” a corporal reported to his commanding officer.

“Then go-go-go,” Colonel Robert Weiss whispered into his throat mike and a jumbled pile of smashed trees disgorged a platoon of heavily armed soldiers.

Keeping low to the ground, the soldiers swiftly crossed those critical meters separating them from the force shield boundary line. The last man used a leafy tree branch to brush the ground in their wake, obliterating their tracks. Ghostly sensors from the starship tracked the soldier's every step, but the alien warning system did not announce their presence to Trell as the signal was nullified by a small black box that the NATO trooper carried.

Moving quick, the 30 men scrambled up the loose mound of dirt at the starship's base, making infinitely less noise then the caravan of trucks and cars on the other side of the interstellar craft.

Avantor and The 16 were not with the assault team, but had remained in the FCT's bunker as Prof. Rajavur considered their technical knowledge of alien weaponry much too valuable to risk in a firefight. Reluctantly, the Gees had agreed with the request, their hypno-training forcing them to accept the prudent course of action rather than go for the more fulfilling act of personal revenge.

As the commandos safely gathered in the cool shadow beneath the curved hull of the gargantuan ship, Weiss pulled a slim rod of burnished copper and hastily soldered microchips from his blouse, the override key hastily built by 17. Pressing the activating switch he waved it at the vessel's hull. Anxiously, the assault team waited. The Gee technician could only guess at the override code to open the starship's hull. If The 16 guessed right, fine. But if he guessed wrong, well, the NATO troopers were not afraid to die, but they did fear a useless death and the subsequent reprisal of the angry street gang on their defenseless world.

The men allowed themselves to breathe again as a meter-wide section of the hull disengaged itself and swung aside, allowing a pile of alien trash to tumble out: bones, bottles, wrapping paper, half eaten fruits, busted bits of junk and one thoroughly dead quatralyan.

Heroically, the soldiers pretended to ignore its ominous presence. As quietly as possible, they began ascending the sloping tube, the rubber soles of their boots aiding the climb up the slick metal. When the last trooper was safe inside, Weiss pressed the activating switch on the jury-rigged key again. At the bottom of the pipe, the hull cycled shut and darkness enfolded them.

“Visors,” the sergeant whispered.

The men pulled the front of their helmets down. Through the infrared-sensitive glass the darkness disappeared, to be replaced by a black-and-white view of the awful-smelling metal tube and their fellow soldiers. Somebody muttered a comment about defecating backwards and was sharply reminded to be quiet by an eloquent rap on the head.

“All present and accounted for, sir,” Lt. Nealon said, nodding his head and feeling awkward about not saluting. But he was bracing himself against the low ceiling with his right hand, and saluting a superior officer with your left was the supreme insult in the military, a matter duels were fought over.

Weiss thanked him and briefly consulted the map that The 16 had drawn from memory of the starship. Straight ahead of them should be a power junction for the garbage tube's security sensor. Raising specially modified binoculars to his visor, he found what he was searching for, a hexagon jutting out from the distant wall. Slipping in the alien muck, Weiss and his soldiers cautiously approached the sensor. The trooper with the black box scanned the dirty hexagon and received a reassuring beep. Tenderly as defusing a bomb, the service panel was removed. A private commenced cutting wires and bypassing circuitry cubes so that when the troops exited the tube, the control room would know nothing of the occurrence.

Col. Weiss bit his cheek in concentration as another wire was snipped. One wrong move here could cause their immediate death, and this was the easy part.

* * *

The last truck rolled across the force shield boundary and Trell flicked it back into existence. Safe once more. Thumps and curses caught his attention and he turned. Twirling Metal Spiral was pounding on his viewscreen.

“What is wrong?” Trell's translator asked.

“This freaking thing is busted!” Drill stormed. “I can't see the broads no more!”

“They have gone beneath the curve of our hull,” the alien explained. “Our cameras can't operate that close.”

His lithe green fingers prodded a control lever and the viewscreens shifted to a picture of the loading bay: a tremendous large room, with weird alien machinery adorning the stark white walls.

“Ramp extended,” Trell said formally, twisting an ivory dial and punching a clear plastic button. “Opening main doors.”

Like an internal view of an egg being cracked, the white wall broke apart, and the split expanded until the afternoon sun flooded into the loading bay. Engines roaring, the cars and trucks rolled along the ramp and into the cavernous room. True New Yorkers, the drivers parked their vehicles anywhere they wished, in no discernible order. The women disembarked, gawking at the bizarre machinery, a few shivering in spite of the warmth of the huge room. Without a sound, the titanic white door cycled shut.

“You ready?” Hammer asked, both eyes glued to the female smorgasbord on the screen.

“Yes sir.”

“Then do it, dude.”

Trell hit a button and a throbbing yellow light filled the loading bay with its probing rays. The energy beam minutely examined the women. Bolt by bolt, the limousines and trucks were scanned, the thick armor of the bank trucks no more resistant than air to the questing rays. There were no hidden weapons, no poisons, no explosives, no radio transmitters, no . . . no . . . no . . . .

“Clean, my Leader,” Trell announced, thankful that the ganglord's solar flare of a temper would not be invoked again. “They are as they seem. Predominantly naked females of your species and petroleum-burning motor carts.” Petroleum-burning! Hot Void, he hadn't thought of that. The alien thumbed the switch on the microphone of his viewscreen.

“TURN THOSE ENGINES OFF!” the Technician's voice boomed from the ceiling of the loading bay. The women rushed to comply. Trell snorked in disgust. Probably have to scrub the place by hand to get the stink out.

“Can we go and greet them, chief?” Chisel asked shyly. Women had always been a mystery to him. What to say, when to say it, how to get them to stop screaming . . . A mystery that he fervently hoped would soon clear up, along with his complexion.

“Let the bitches come to us,” Drill said, his hungry eyes never leaving the viewscreen for an instant. He had never seen women like this before, not even in movies or magazines. It was a wet dream come true!

Trell advised against it though. “That would be unwise, letting them see the control room. Why don't you meet them in the Pleasure Room?”

“The what?” Hammer asked incredulously.

The little alien repeated himself. A pleasure room, the idea intrigued Hammer. These alien dudes did themselves okay.

“Trell, you tell them where to go,” Hammer decided. “Then show us how to get to this Pleasure Room too.”

“Affirmative.”

The ganglord stood and smiled. “You stay here, and keep a watch on things, while the boys and I get down.”