Illegal Aliens (15 page)

“Yeah,” Drill said, licking his chops. “Get down.”

The Technician spoke to correct their mistake. “But sir, the Pleasure Room is above us.”

Hammer waggled a finger. “Just tell us the way there. No, on second thought, I don't want you here by yourself.” The hairy youth lost his friendly smile and loomed over the alien like death itself. “I don't want you getting no fancy ideas. You’re coming with us.”

After working so many cycles with Leader Idow and Boztwank, Trell had no trouble creating a forced grin. “Of c-course, sir.” Oh Void.

* * *

Once out of the garbage chute, the soldiers unzipped themselves from their coveralls and tossed the soiled garments aside. While Captain Weiss checked their location on the map, they closed the door behind them and prepped their weapons. In Double Time Hush, the troopers hustled down the clean white corridor as fast as their combat sneakers would allow them.

The interior of the starship proved to be an intricate maze of branching corridors, passageways, ramps and spirals. Soon, the colonel realized that his map didn't exactly match this craft, as a left turn put them in the kitchen, rather than the reactor room. Terrific. While it was true that without Avantor and her 17's help Earth would be in even worse trouble, it was also true that if the two of them had not let Idow and his crew get here in the first place, then none of this would have happened. Or maybe that was just sour grapes on his part.

A corporal tugged on his sleeve. “Sir,” the man whispered. “There's a Y intersection here that's not on the map. Which way do we go?”

“Left again,” Weiss said, mentally crossing his fingers, and the troops marched on. Thanks a heap, Great Golden Bozos.

* * *

In the corridor to their right, beyond the curve of the ship, a huge armored robot ceased its endless pacing to and fro in front of Airlock #4 and rotated a massive armored turret. Rrrr? There had been a noise detected. With its weapons primed for action, the machine sauntered down the passageway to investigate.

* * *

As the twelve women hesitantly entered the Pleasure Room, they gasped in astonishment, just as the Bloody Deckers had done only minutes before.

When the street gang had first entered, they hadn't been very impressed. It was just another big white room. But as Trell palmed a glowing panel on the doorjamb, the walls and domed ceiling had darkened into a rich sky-blue, with a holograph of cheerful orange clouds passing serenely overhead. A green carpet of living moss sprouted from the floor, each downy soft blade literally begging for the touch of their bare feet. The gang was ill at ease with talking grass, but after a brief experiment they rather enjoyed stomping the masochistic moss and its subsequent cries of joy.

While this went on, big comfortable divans seemed to flow out of the walls; plush couches that adjusted themselves to any position its occupant took, as the delighted Chisel soon discovered.

Tastefully displayed on cut-crystal tables that dramatically dropped from the clouds without any apparent damage, were artifacts from a thousand worlds; gently humming vases of translucent metal, an ice statue of a bolting seven legged creature that neither melted or ran and a cheap plaster cockroach with a timepiece in its stomach.

Rotating out of a corner of the room was a library of video spheres, containing the stereophonic death throes of a hundred different test subjects. Hoping to find a porn flick or rock concert, Drill pulled out a sphere at random and tried to fit the rainbow ball into the play unit but was unable to make the alien contraption work.

Frustrated at his failure, the locksmith ceased his fumbling and pinked himself as the women entered. He lustfully gave them the gaze of a professional babe watcher. Oh man, these foxes were so hot they should have set off the fire alarm.

With his right ankle on the left knee, Hammer sprawled on a red velveteen couch like a king holding court, and waited for the women to approach. Making himself comfortable, the youth had doffed his black leather jacket and folded it neatly onto the moss by his boots, his activated laser rifle lying conveniently nearby. In his tight denims and sleeveless T-shirt, his muscular form was readily apparent, along with his many scars.

Timidly hesitant, the bevy of semi-naked beauties stayed clustered near the doorway until a tall blonde spotted Hammer and deliciously undulated over to the ganglord.

“Greetings, Hammer of the Bloody Deckers,” she addressed, obviously quoting from memory. “The United Nations of Earth salutes you and your brave men for the capture of this alien vessel and hope that you will accept us.”

She had the grace to blush here. “As additional tribute, in the spirit in which it is given.”

“That's cool,” Drill said, barely controlling his rapine impulses. Sitting on the edge of the couch, the embarrassed Chisel crossed and re-crossed his legs.

With a seductive smile, the blonde smiled, as if reading their thoughts. “I’m Amanda,” she said introducing herself. “This is Roxanne, Ruth, Alice, Julie, and Cynthia.” Cynthia smiled bewitchingly at Drill, and he leered at her. The bitch had legs good enough to eat lunch off, and she had brought lunch!

“And over there,” continued Amanda, pointing to the second group of ladies, “is Joyce, Deborah, Melissa, Stacy, Wilma and Laura.”

Laura was a tiny blonde with an astonishing bust that captured the immediate interest of Chisel. Why, he was actually taller than her! New sexual vistas suddenly opened for the boy and he felt his face burn red.

Innocently curious, the wide bedroom eyes of Melissa glanced about the room. “I thought there were four of you?” she said, finger teasingly in mouth.

“There are,” Drill said, jerking a thumb towards Trell.

The bored alien was sitting over in the corner sullenly twiddling his thumbs. Mate and get on with it, the alien ordered them mentally.

Swaying in place, Melissa's eyes remained guileless. “Four humans,” she corrected.

Instantly alert, Hammer furrowed his brow. They thought the traitor was still alive, eh? Instinctively, he decided to lie.

“Crowbar's in the control room,” he said loud enough for the others members of his gang to hear. “Making sure that nobody tries nothing stupid.”

Amanda shrugged, sending erotic waves through the more prominent portion of her anatomy. “That's okay. We could send a girl to keep him company so he wouldn't feel left out.”

Hammer snorted. “Screw him.”

The willowy blonde dimpled. “That too.”

“I meant forget it. I don't want my man getting distracted like from his work.” The ganglord smiled then and mentally undressed the woman, which took very little effort on his part. “You sure could do that. Come here, babe.”

Submissively, the woman did as he requested. Hammer rose from the couch, pulled her close and kissed her on the mouth. She resisted him at first, then molded her body against his and returned the investment with compound interest.

When they finally parted for necessary air, three more females gathered about the ganglord and began caressing his body. Food from the delivery trucks was brought in by a team of squat menial robots, which strongly resembled self-propelled waiter's carts with a pair of black metal arms, and the repast was spread out on a blue crystal table. Soon, rock music pounded from an amazingly fancy CD player and Trell stared at the device with ill concealed amusement. What was it, a machine for sound reproduction, or a missile launching system?

“Time to par-ty!” Drill yowled, a woman on each arm.

Chisel had his clinking jacket stripped off him by an oriental girl, who then nestled in his lap and wiggled delightfully. Speechless with desire, the street punk heard Melissa and Wilma whisper incredible things into his ears and then seal the messages with hot kisses.

“I used to be an exotic dancer,” Cynthia confessed to the panting ganglord as she warmly rubbed against him.

“Well then, show us, lady!” Hammer commanded. “Show us!”

Drill boosted the volume on the stereo. The statuesque brunette spun to the middle of the room, kicked off her shoes and proceeded to twist her supple body and kick her long legs high in the air to the beat of the music. The walls of the Pleasure Room absorbed the harmonic tones and threw them back at the revelers cleaner and clearer. Soon everybody but Trell was dancing on the green floor, shouting and laughing and stomping the tender moss into trembling ecstasy.

The alien restrained himself from summoning a med-bot, deducing that this strange ballet must be part of their mating ritual. How primitive. Why didn't the men just club the women unconscious like civilized people? More bored then ever, Trell consoled himself by eating a bucket of fried chicken, bucket included. Then he daintily licked his fingers clean. Delicious! The Technician found a second bucket, emptied out the chicken and gleefully began munching on the greasy waxed cardboard. By the Prime Builder, could these Dirtlings cook! Soon his translated laughter joined that of the cheerful, dancing throng.

* * *

Colonel Weiss's first indication that something else was amiss came in the form of a chattering assault rifle from the rear of his squad. Now what?

“Back!” he ordered his troops, and the point men came running. The NATO soldiers dashed around a corner and into a scene from Hell itself.

At the far end of the corridor, the monstrous warobot had found the intruders at last, and was rolling towards them in a manner that the NATO manual would definitely have described as hostile, its jointed metal arms, tipped with whirring blades, snipping shears, or very nasty looking blue glowing balls. Wasting no time with subtlety, Colonel Weiss ordered the immediate use of rockets.

Promptly on command, both bazookas reached out with fiery fingers to strike the meter-wide belly tread of the robot, violently reducing the armored links to mangled metal trash.

Only annoyed, the mechanical killer paused for a moment, and then activated its cumbersome belly jets. In a wash of warm air, the behemoth slowly lifted a foot off the ground and began gliding forward. Immediately the soldiers jerked their arms and a dozen grenades bounced down the expanse of the passageway to explode underneath the alien machine, but the triphammer blasts only made the machine bobble a bit in its flight. Without waiting for orders, the bazookas spoke again, destroying a huge section of the passageway directly in front of the armored horror, forcing the robot to clear away the wreckage before it could advance.

Privates Angelo and Peters pumped their grenade launchers and fired, the 40mm shells of high explosive impacting smack on the domed head of the warobot, causing it to blink. A hail of shrapnel flew back at them, and ricochets thumped into their NATO bulletproof vests. A man cried out and fell with blood on his uniform. Lt. Nealon triggered his flamethrower, the arcing spray just reaching the distant machine to hose it with liquid napalm that clung like burning honey to its metal hide.

Unstoppable, the warobot floated on, it's collection of ferruled arms dripping flame.

Firing his handgun, Col. Weiss frowned. They didn't have the time, or resources, for a pitched battle. “Beta Squad, delay that thing!” he yelled over the din of combat. “Alpha Squad, to me!”

The troops split apart. Beta Squad digging in their heels and assuming defensive positions. The colonel and Alpha squad raced on, knowing full well that the fate of the world rested on them finding the control room and subduing the street gang. The corridor before them turned sharply. According to the map there should have been another Y-shaped intersection coming up. But as the soldiers turned the corner, they found themselves at a dead end. Damn map was wrong again! Weiss touched the wall and under his fingertips he felt it shift to the left and lock. The map wasn't wrong this time. They had been sealed off.

“Benson! Kaminski! Blast a hole in that partition. Gelfand, Lutzman, assist them. Everyone else back!” Weiss herded his troops away from the wall.

* * *

The colonel had left Beta Squad an ace in the hole, a corporal who carried an experimental prototype from the UN Weapons Lab. An Atomic Vortex pistol, whatever that was, and Christ alone knew what the thing could do. It had been brought on this mission just in case of an emergency. Well, if this wasn't an emergency, then Daniel Webster had just changed the definition.

“AVP Fire!” Lt. Nealon ordered.

Bracing himself against the recoil, the corporal unleashed his death-dealing maybe. Blinding heat filled the length of the corridor and somebody screamed.

* * *

Trell's happy grin wilted as his translator spoke in a rush of subsonics about what was happening on Deck 6, relaying the information to him via the Boztwank's tech-station.

“Alert! Alert! We have been boarded,” the beige box on his belt said in English.

Nobody seemed able to hear him over the deafening music, so Trell lifted the tape player up high and brought it smashing down on the crystal table. In the silence that followed, his translator calmly repeated its message.

Rudely, Hammer shoved the women off his lap and grabbed his jacket and laser. “Come on boys! We got some killing to do.”

Drill stopped the man with a shout. “Hold it,” he said feeling inspired. “I got a great idea!”

Already at the door, the ganglord pivoted. “What?”

“How about using that Omega Gas stuff?” Drill suggested. “Hey greenie, we got any left?”

“Yes, there is!” Trell cried enthusiastically. He joined them by the door. “Lots! We can stop them cold!”

“Stop them hot, you mean!” Hammer snarled in correction, and he gave the alien a push into the hallway. “Get going, Technician! We’re gonna flood this ship with boiling Omega Gas and kill their asses dead!”

Garbled as that was, Trell got the general idea. Yes, they must kill these unknown invaders and their beasts of burden.

“What about the girls?” Chisel asked slipping into his jacket. Laser rifle in hand, he was still encircled by his allotment of scantily clad beauties.

Just bait in the trap, Hammer realized. But he excused himself for not figuring it out sooner, as this particular trick had never been played on him before. A pretty slick trap too, he had to admit. Keep the gang busy with broads while the cops raided the place to literally catch the Deckers with their pants down. Should he kill these women and order some more? Nyah, what a waste. That Amanda, yum!