Striker (The Alien Wars Book 2) (22 page)

A moment later,
he was engulfed in the cloud, struggling to maintain control in the near
hurricane-force winds. Now that his vision was worthless, he wouldn’t be able
to see where he was going. The terrain avoidance system blinked in and out, but
as far as he recalled, there weren’t any mountains at this altitude, so he put
the machine on autopilot and muttered a prayer.

As thunder
crackled overhead, he was confident he had seen the last of the Strikers. In
any case, there was nothing else he could do about it. He had tried his best,
but now there were bigger problems to deal with.

He reached back
and felt Lucy’s pulse. The beating was slow, but at least it was steady. It
wasn’t good, but it hadn’t gotten worse. As much as he hated the fact that Lucy
had inhaled the toxic chemicals that made her unconscious, he was glad she’d
been the only one. If they had all been affected, they would still be in the
house. There was only one way that would have ended.

Logan
swiped Lucy’s
hair out of her face and leaned back in his rocking seat. With
Mount Shasta
now obliterated,
the toxic chemicals would soon be no more. Life could soon return, at least
theoretically. There was still the minor problem of the damn Seod infestation
though.
For as long as they remained on Earth, there would be
killing.
He had seen his share of fighting in
Syria
,
but this epic slaughter was on a whole new level. He punched the steering
column and howled, “It has to stop!”

Looking into the
beautiful face of Lucy,
Logan
made a promise to himself that he wouldn’t stop for any reason
until she awoke. He stared at her necklace again and frowned at the earlier
conversation he’d had with his brother. Why could Kenneth recall seeing a key
just like that and not him? Sure, his brother had a better memory, but for the
life of him, he couldn’t remember seeing a key like that in his entire life.

For the next ten
minutes, he switched back to manual control and darted from one cloud to the next.
He was suddenly torn from his thoughts as a bolt of lightning hit a part of the
aircraft. As the machine shook, the control panel flickered and dozens of
warning alarms beeped in his face.

Logan
hit the fire
suppression switch, but orange flames kept licking out of the right wing.
“Damn!” It was fruitless to keep on flying. The sooner he
landed,
the better. He throttled back on the power and the plane descended.

Just as he
regained visibility, a hill rose up in front of his windshield and he jerked the
rudder to the left. As the aircraft swerved away from the trees, an idle part
of his mind wondered what was going on. From what he had seen on the map, there
shouldn’t have been any hills for miles.

He could only
assume that the Seods had some device that had messed up the plane’s
instruments. If this was the case, he could be anywhere. Fortunately, he hadn’t
been
traveling
for too long, so he couldn’t be too
far off target, but it was still troubling. Who knew what kind of magic tools
these Seods had at their disposal? They clearly were more advanced than humans.

Pushing those
grim thoughts aside, he concentrated on finding a good landing spot, which was
proving harder with every passing second, as his altitude dropped and all he
could see were trees, trees, and more trees.

Suddenly, a flash
of blue lit up his windshield. It was a lake. Small and very narrow, but it
gave him hope. Any impact would be jarring, but unlike hitting the trees, there
would be a chance of him and Lucy surviving. Slim, but a slim chance was better
than no chance at all.

With his
propeller still spewing fumes, he realized that as much as he would have liked
to do a dry run to test the distance, he wouldn’t have time. He was already
cutting it thin, as the fire had now spread along the wing and was almost
touching the fuselage. Once that was on fire, it was a toss up on whether the
smoke or explosion would kill them first.

Pushing down on
the stick, he dived toward the lake. He would have to time the landing to
perfection. Too steep and he would slam headfirst into the water, but if he
didn’t go steep enough, he wouldn’t hit the water soon enough and he’d slam
into the trees.

Never in his
brief flying career had anything been on the line like it was right now. It was
literally of matter of life or death. With Lucy still in a coma, he had
stop
the plane close to the shore since he couldn’t drag her
too far in the cold water.

As the lake rose
up to meet him, he gripped the stick with both hands and held on tight, waiting
for the moment to push it upward. The seconds seemed to go like hours as the
water got closer and closer.

Just as he nudged
the controls down, the propeller exploded. The aircraft shuddered to and fro
and dipped hard into a stall.
Logan
dragged the sick upward with both hands and roared out in anger.

The airplane hit
the water, belly first, so hard that it flipped the plane off the water once
more.

As the
disintegrating craft careened toward the shore,
Logan
gripped his
seat with everything he had, not wanting to smash his head on the glass in
front of him. With an ear-splitting screech, the plane flopped over and crashed
upside down into the icy cold water.

Before he could
even unbuckle his harness, frigid water
swooshed
in
from all sides. The remnants of the plane sank below the surface immediately.

Logan
yanked his
seatbelt off and swam over to Lucy. Grabbing her with both hands, he kicked
open the door and swam upward. He kicked with all his might, his gasping lungs
turning his vision red. With the state that Lucy’s body was in, any amount of
water that entered her system would only make matters worse.

Gasping for air,
he broke through the surface of the lake and
sidestroked
to the shore. He had no idea how he managed to even keep their heads above
water, but with his strength failing fast, he reached the embankment and hefted
Lucy onto the grass. He tried to stand, but his Jell-O legs folded and he
collapsed beside her.

Breathing
heavily, he checked Lucy’s heartbeat. It was worse than before. “Stay with me,
babe!” He pumped her chest and gave her furious mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in
an attempt to get the water out of her body. It was hard work, but slowly and
surely, a trickle of water spit out of her mouth.

He examined her
heartbeat again and cried at the minor improvement. He continued working on her
until he was confident that all the water had left her body. He then fell
beside her, pure muscle failure finally taking its toll.

As he lay there,
gasping for air, something snapped from the
treeline
.
He was too exhausted to move, so he just tilted his head at the sound.
Something rustled in the trees to his right, giving him enough motivation to at
least sit up.

A moment later,
two armed men emerged. They were tall and dressed in military fatigues. As they
strolled toward
Logan
, weapons at the high ready, he felt around for his handgun or even
his
pocketknife
… but everything was at the bottom of
the lake by now. If these men meant to do him harm, there was nothing he could
do about it. He balled his fists and tried to rise, but only fell back to his
knees in exhaustion. As the men approached, he gave up and raised his hands.
“Please help us. My fiancée is in a coma.”

“I’m Hugo,” one
of the men mumbled as he lifted his baseball cap off his head and scratched his
head. “What’s wrong with her?”

“She inhaled that
green gas that came out of
Mount Shasta
,”
Logan
replied.

Hugo knelt down over
Lucy and felt her heartbeat. “How long has she been like this?”

“Since early this morning.
We have to
get her to a doctor, or at least indoors.”

The man frowned
and then had a quick chat with his companion. After several glances at Lucy and
Logan, Hugo raised his shotgun.

“What’s going
on?”
Logan
sputtered.

“Why are you
lying to me?” Hugo snarled, his voice brimming with anger.

“I’m not lying!”
Logan
yelled.
“She’s dying! Lucy inhaled the toxic chemicals after we fled
Mount Shasta
.”

“Then why is she
still alive?” the other man questioned.

Logan
frowned.
“What?”

Hugo pointed to
his companion. “Zed’s child and wife died less than an hour after inhaling the
stuff and my kid suffered the same fate after only two hours. And from the
others we’ve spoken to, none of their relatives lasted more than a couple of
hours, which begs the question: How come this woman is still alive after eight
or so hours?”

“She mustn’t have
inhaled much of the chemicals,”
Logan
replied. “I mean, my friends and I breathed a very tiny bit while
attempting to escape and we’re okay.”

Hugo’s gun didn’t
waver. “Then why is she in a coma?”

“Because she’s
sick,”
Logan
replied. “She inhaled the poison back in—”

“Liar!”
Zed fired the shotgun at
Logan
at
point-blank range. As the pellets cracked over
Logan
’s head, the
man snarled. “That was just a warning shot. Now stand up and tell us again what
happened, or the next
one’s
in your lying face.”

Logan
got to his
feet and pleaded with Hugo. “I’m not a Hybrid if that’s what you’re thinking.
I’m just trying to help my fiancée. Why can’t you believe me?”

“Because she’s in
a coma,” Hugo replied.

Logan
frowned.
“What has that got to do with anything?”

“Are you playing
dumb with us?” Zed questioned.

“What?
No, of course not.
Why would I?”
Logan
emptied his
pockets. “Look, I don’t have anything to harm you with. I just want to help
Lucy. That’s all I want.”

“If what you’re
saying is true, then the woman wouldn’t be unconscious,” Hugo stated.

“Huh?
But what about your children?
Didn’t they go into a coma
before they died?”
Logan
replied.

Hugo shivered.
“They didn’t. They just took a breath and died slowly. They were awake through
every agonizing moment of it.”

“But surely there
must be others …”
Logan
raked a hand through his hair, his brain going a million miles an
hour. “Lucy can’t be the only one.”

“There’s no such
thing as going into a coma after inhaling the chemicals,” Zed stated. “So for
the last time, why don’t you tell us what really happened.”

“But it doesn’t
make any sense!”
Logan
ignored Zed and cradled Lucy’s head.
“Why only
her?”

A few seconds
later, another figure emerged from the trees. This time it was a Japanese woman
with long, flowing black hair. Clutching a bow and arrow, she sprinted over to
the two men. “Quinn wants a word with you, Hugo.” She narrowed her eyes at
Logan
. “Who is he?”

“I don’t know,”
Hugo replied, “but we’ll soon find out.” He looked over at Zed. “Check him for
weapons.”

Logan
wasn’t happy
with the situation, but he just stood still as Zed gave him the once-over. It
was three against one, so it was hopeless trying to fight.

“He’s clean,” Zed
announced a few moments later. As he knelt down beside Lucy, the woman strolled
over. “I’ll check her.”

“Okay, Kumi.” The
man moved aside and waited. Half a minute later, the woman stood up and nodded.

“Okay, let’s get
going before Quinn gets angry with me,” Hugo said.

“Go where?”
Logan
asked.

“Don’t ask
questions!” Zed ordered. “Just be grateful you’re still alive. If I had my way,
you—”

“That’s enough,
Zed.” Hugo grabbed
Logan
’s shoulder. “We’ll let Quinn decide the man’s fate.”

Zed aimed his
shotgun at
Logan
.
“Follow Hugo.”

“But what about Lucy?
I can’t just
leave her here,”
Logan
said.

Hugo frowned.
“Hmm, the Seods might see her and that might lead them back to us.” He jerked
his head at Kumi. “Give me a hand.”

The woman slung
the bow over her shoulder and helped the man put Lucy on his back. Then, with
Kumi making sure that Lucy didn’t fall off, they hiked back into the trees.

Logan
quickly
followed, with Zed bringing up the rear.
Logan
wanted to ask
Hugo a lot more questions, but he didn’t. He was just grateful that Zed hadn’t
been the one to find them. He was sure that the man would have fired first and
asked questions later.