I went to survey the aftermath of the battle. The soldiers lay on the ground, their guts laid open by alien claws. Sadly there were as many alien bodies as there were dead human soldiers. I directed a few aliens to start loading as many as we could into the shuttle. There were over a thousand aliens on the island. Successfully evacuating them would take a long time, but it was better than sitting here waiting to starve. One warrior tapped me on the shoulder and extended his hand.
“Doctor, we don’t know each other, but I know your companion, Lt. Colonel Jackson,” he said. “I’m proud to say that I was one of the people sent to rescue you. My name is Tilka.”
“Thank you, Tilka. I know that you went through hell to save me.”
“I’d say that you’ve certainly made things even at this point,” he acknowledged. “That was a brave but stupid thing you did, you know that? I can see how you and the Lt. Colonel are friends.” He laughed.
“Hah! That’s fair enough. Can you help me? We should dispose of the dead properly.” He agreed and we set about lifting the bodies, human and alien. I watched as Tilka disappeared behind a hill and brought out the last body—a small one that he carried in his arms. I bit my lip to keep from swearing. That wasn’t fair. That wasn’t fair at all. But what was done was done. We had to keep moving. Once we had them laid out in a line I used one of the human soldier’s utility shovels to dig graves. Tilka chipped in with his hands. We worked in silence and once all the graves were dug, we set about placing the soldiers at rest. I noticed that Tilka took care to shut the humans’ eyes as well as his own. I admired that. We folded the soldiers’ hands over their chests and used the spade to turn sand over the bodies. Tilka knelt and murmured something. A prayer for the dead. I didn’t feel like praying for these humans who had betrayed my deepest hopes, but I could pray for the alien lives lost. I wished that wherever they were, they were at rest.
The time had come to reclaim the ship and save our people.
24
President Wright
President Wright straightened his tie as the airlock doors opened and he strode into the passageway that led to the bridge. He had donned his dress uniform for the occasion. It had only needed a little bit of adjustment. His soldiers had done a decent enough job with their mission. The ship was cleaned up, free of alien scum, and ready to load human passengers onto it. He had to hand it to Captain Dalton, the man did fine work. His security detail still treated the place like an alien could pop out from behind every corner. After watching footage of those unholy creatures in action he couldn’t begrudge a little paranoia.
There was some damage to the ship’s interior, but it wasn’t too severe. It might delay their departure by a day or two. Nothing to worry about. There were more aliens awake when his forces arrived, thanks to the soldier and the social worker. There was nothing he hated more than traitors. His time in the service had taught him that treason was the absolute worst sin a man could commit. To not only defect from your country but your species? Repulsive. He would love to see them captured and killed, but Captain Dalton reported that a cloaked ship was missing from the hangar. It didn’t matter, in the end. Any ship that was able to detach from the mothership had a limited supply of air and necessities. If the traitor wanted to starve out his last hours it was of no consequence to him. Besides, it wasn’t as if they could afford to waste the time and resources necessary to track it down. He commanded his troops to stay alert on both ships. Just in case Jackson got any ideas. They were coming down to the final minutes of this ordeal; it was imperative that they kept control over the situation until they were able to depart.
He understood that the social worker had already been dropped off with her alien friends planetside. Oh, to be there when she realized her fate. Wright smiled to himself. Idealists always broke so hard. He was sure that she was having a panic attack right now.
This was the ultimate victory for him. Not only had they secured one starship for his people, he would go down in history as the man who conquered the alien invaders to save as much of the human race as possible. He would leave this world a hero. He should have thanked Alicia—she set the stage for this. Too bad she couldn’t execute. Yes, killing the aliens didn’t sit well with him and he felt guilty about having lied to them. If given the choice he would prefer honesty. It was easier. As things stood, he had to choose between honesty and doubling humanity’s chances at survival, and he would pick survival every single time. Besides, it’s not as if he was standing in front of them, pulling the trigger. They could still figure out a way to survive somehow, he was sure. He imagined that the alien captain would understand his plight. They were both charged with the protection and preservation of their people. Sometimes that meant making the hard choices.
“Sir!” A nameless army grunt ran up to the President. Wright waved his hand, telling the security detail to move aside. “Sir, it’s shuttle 19. We’ve lost contact with them. They’re not responding at all.”
Wright swore under his breath. “Get me images. Now.”
The grunt snapped to a salute and ran to get him a tablet. When he returned, the scene that greeted the President was one of death and destruction. He scrolled through the ship’s camera feeds and saw the group of soldiers he sent on that ship laying dead in the sand. Inside the shuttle, he found groups of very alive, very conscious aliens. They were gathered around someone. He switched to a cockpit feed and there she was. The social worker. She was speaking to the group, gesturing emphatically. He wished he could get audio feeds of what she was saying, but the images were limited to picture only. Suddenly one of the aliens pointed and she turned. They must have seen the camera. Alex mouthed two clear words before butting the grip of her pistol against the lens, breaking it.
“Well, fuck. CAPTAIN!” Wright bellowed. Captain Dalton, looking haggard, jogged to meet his Commander-in-chief.
“Yes sir!” Dalton straightened up despite the protests of his aching muscles. He knew that Wright was under stress and he didn’t want to be on the receiving end of the man’s bad temper, if it was possible.
“What the fuck am I looking at,” Wright hissed, spinning the tablet in his hands. Dalton saw the picture of the dead soldiers and swore. “Indeed! Get down there. Three ships. You'll be on the lead one. Kill them all or don’t come back.” Wright ordered
“But, sir, I—“ Dalton argued, but shut his mouth at a look from the President.
An aide tapped the President on the shoulder. “Sir, I must caution you sending that many troops away from the ships at this time may be unwise. Sending that many men away will slow the influx of people and supply onboarding. Plus we are still unaware of where the alien captain and the Lt. Colonel are.”
Wright shot the man a look. “I’m well aware of this, Mr. Thomas. We have more than a hundred troops aboard this ship already. More than enough to handle whatever rocks the species betrayer and his friends can manage to throw at us.”
The aide hesitated. “...yes, sir.”
Wright returned his attention to the soldier in front of him. “Dismissed, Captain. Get the hell out of my sight.” Dalton nodded and sprinted away to gather the necessary troops for his new assignment.
If you want a job done right, do it yourself, the President thought. If Dalton continued to fail, he sure as hell would find a way to fix the problem. He heard that orbital cannons dealt a hell of a lot of damage...
25
Alexandra
Tilka had sharp eyes, I had to hand that to him. We were mid-way through formulating a plan of attack when he had noticed the glint of a camera lens behind me. I smashed it in with the butt of a pistol but I had no idea how much the person on the other end of the camera feed saw or heard. We had to move quickly. Wright wouldn’t let this transgression go unpunished.
Two aliens who had come forward as pilots worked diligently to rip the human-sized seats in the cockpit out. Even with the number we had lost in the ambush, it was still a tight squeeze on the shuttle. We were cramming
more bodies into it than it was meant to hold. If this plan was going to succeed, we’d need to make multiple trips. I flinched and ground my teeth together as the seating came free with a screech of metal. The alien pilots passed the chairs over their heads and they were carried over the group of aliens before being tossed out the back of the shuttle. The pilots situated themselves as comfortably as they could. Unfortunately, the tight quarters of the human-sized cockpit meant that they had to practically sit on their tails. I snickered and they glared, but a hint of a smile played on their lips too.
The ship’s proximity alarm went off and I raised my head to the ceiling. “Dare I ask what that is?” I asked, eyes shut.
“Doctor, there are multiple ships incoming from orbit. There appear to be three in total. All three of them bear American identification. With this passenger load, we may not be able to outmaneuver them or fight very well,” the pilot said. Her toe claw started to tap on the floor nervously.
I lifted a fist and knocked it into the ship’s bulkhead. “Open the hatch, pilot.”
“Ma’am?”
“Please. We don’t have a lot of time.”
She did so and the group looked around confused as the shuttle opened back up to reveal the island. The sun was setting rapidly and I admired the reflection off the ocean for a moment. In another lifetime, this could have been paradise. But, the mission must go on.
“My friends!” I called over the confusion. I put two fingers in my mouth and whistled as loudly as I could. “My friends! Please listen to me!” Every one of the aliens stopped and turned my way, their gazes inquisitive. “We are faced with two options. Three shuttles are heading our way, armed to the teeth. They will be filled with soldiers whose only directive is to kill us. If we take off with this many people aboard, the chances of us being able to fight them or evade them are minimal. You can leave the ship right now, find a way to spend your final days in peace. It’s a slim chance versus no chance, but you do have the choice.”
For the hundredth time I glanced at the alien children. I’d taken them aboard because I wanted to get some of them anyplace safer than this tiny spit of land, but now we were headed into a potentially hostile situation. They could die, and the thought was like a stab to my heart.
A couple of the aliens looked at the door, then looked back at me. For a minute, there was dead silence in the ship and I resigned myself to the possibility that my meager escape plan might be snuffed out before it began. One by one, the aliens started to stamp their feet. The alien children chirped and jumped. The occasional cheer and call erupted from the assembled. One of the elders stepped forward and placed a hand on my shoulder.
“We are with you, sister.” Butting his head into mine.
“We are with you!” the crowd echoed. The stamping got louder and louder until the entire ship was ringing with the sound. I turned back to the alien pilots and grinned.
“Let’s move, then. Get this ship up as quickly as possible.” The hatch door closed again and I felt the shuttle rumble as it accelerated into the air. The pilots aimed the ship toward orbit, setting their flight path opposite the enemy shuttles. I saw the light of the sun fading through the windows. The enemy was coming in from the East—heading West would throw us into the shade of sunset more quickly. An inadvertent tactical advantage, but a good one nonetheless. As we flew, the shuttle dipped perilously. As the pilots warned, we were too heavy. The enemy shuttles were gaining.
The pilots spun the shuttle on a dime, making my stomach lurch and slamming alien bodies into the walls of the ship. I felt the whir of the ship’s guns going live and the ship shuddered with gunfire. I yelled for everyone to hunker down as best as they could and found a corner to wedge myself into. The ship weaved and bobbed and my muscles ached with the effort just to keep myself still. The pilots were doing their best to keep us in the air but it was like flying a bathtub filled with cement. The ship wasn’t built for serious combat. I busied myself with checking on the others as best I could. An alien child snuggled themselves up against me, their small body shaking. I stroked their neck and back, trying what little I could to calm them. As much as I would have liked to make it back up to the ship, I felt strangely at peace with the probability of dying among these people. After all, I had fulfilled my purpose. What a lucky thing to be able to say that before you die.
All of a sudden the ship was knocked off course by the force of a nearby explosion. I scrambled up from my hiding place and joined the pilots in the cockpit, just in time to see the ship scream past the remains of an explosion. An enemy ship, or what was left of it. Pieces of the craft plummeted to the earth.
“One of them just got blown out of the air, Doctor,” the pilot to my left said. “It wasn’t one of their ships, nor was it us. Whoever they are, we’re lucky they’re on our side!”
The other two enemy ships peeled off their formation to try and escape the invisible opponent firing at them. They both looped around for a second pass at the attack and I heard the pilots counting down to when the ship would be in range of the guns. The pilots readied the ship’s cannons to fire but just before they locked on target, the enemy ship in front of us blew apart.
“Holy shit!” Whoever was shooting these things down, they were my new best friend. “Who is it? Who’s got weapons out there to take these things down?”
“I don’t know, Doctor,” the pilot responded, “I can’t find a single trace of them. Radar, sonar, not a thing. Not a single thing on visual either. Whoever they are, I’m damned grateful they’re here.”
“Me too.” I thought for a second and smiled, my shoulders falling and I put my face to the sky. “I only know one person who would be this bold.”
A crackle came over the radio.
“Hello over there!” Jackson called. “Need an escort, my friends?”
I grabbed the radio. “Just in time, where the hell have you been?”
“You know, sittin’ pretty, playing cards. Would you hurry it up? We have a ship to get back to!”
“You got it, partner. Maybe you’d like to make a pit stop for some more passengers first?”
“Sounds like a plan.” Jackson took down the cloaking of the ship and we headed for the beach.
26
Jackson
We landed the ship on the beach among a huge group of aliens. Alex had done a decent enough job of organizing them. The ones who met us were calm and collected. Even the children stood awaiting direction. Leave it to these people to once again throw themselves into whatever is needed for the greater good. If only humanity had managed to do that more than a handful of times during its reign over the Earth.
Ka’thak leapt out of the ship to greet his people. I watched from the opened hatch as he ran to the embrace of his warriors. Together they discussed the situation. They had made good use of the time until Alex and her shuttle could return. They briefed Ka’thak with a headcount, how many were wounded, and how many were dead. Along with a group of adults, they had set up rudimentary shelters all over the beach and had gathered as many coconuts and edible plants as possible. Their claws made short work of the coconuts’ tough hide and I saw a few aliens happily chowing down on the meat inside.
“I need warriors,” he announced. “We can give you some food and supplies to keep you sustained while you’re down here, but for now we need fighters.”
My fellow soldiers and I set about stripping the cloaked ship of what food and water were kept aboard. I also took what survival equipment we had and distributed it among some of the adults. Whether or not it did any good, it would boost morale until we could get back. Alex stayed on her shuttle, flying a circular patrol around the island to ensure no more enemy ships appeared. When we had loaded as many warriors as we could fit into the ship, we took off with promises to return for the rest of the aliens as quickly as possible. Step one in the plan was easy. Step two, getting onto the ship, was going to be far more complicated.
“Fear not, my friend,” Ka’thak said when I h
ad relayed my fears to him. “I have been considering the possibility of a hostile takeover on the ship since we met. It’s something we should always have been prepared for. I’ve set a few precautions against the possibility. They’ll do their job. We’ll be able to get aboard easily enough. It’s once we land in the hangar that I’m concerned about what we’ll face.”
“We’re outnumbered sir, by dozens to one at this point. What’s the plan?”
“We’ve got some time to make one. We’ll come up with something.”
I sure hope so, at least.
We flew toward orbit and headed for the motherships, fully expecting to see them floating next to each other. They weren’t anymore. The scale of the ships was so huge that it took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on. The human mothership was turning slowly, swiveling its guns toward Alex’s shuttle. Ka’thak and I had re-engaged the cloaking before we left the Earth’s atmosphere and now her ship was the only target on the map. Damn.
“Time to move!” Ka’thak shouted. My co-pilot and gunner accelerated the ship toward the human ship and fired a few well-placed shots. I grinned as they hit their targets, disabling several of the ship’s guns. The ship tried to return fire but they were shooting at a ghost. If we didn’t move quickly, they were going to remember to shoot at the ship that they could see.
What a fantastic opportunity to get a little crazy with the ship’s steering. There were no guarantees we were going to make it and I would be damned if I didn’t put this thing through its paces before I left this life.
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