by Mark Tufo
“What the fuck are you doing?” I screamed above the din.
“Freedom, hu-man. Shut up!” Drababan answered, more blood spittled from his mouth. The world was darker and quieter, we were through the mouth of the tunnel. Drababan didn’t stop, even as we passed what looked like a colonel laying down suppressing fire, astonishment blazed on his face for a millisecond as he recovered and barked orders for his Marines to disengage from the heated battle. As we retreated farther into the depths, the screams became softer until the world almost shattered, I would learn later that the transport ship had blown the escape route shut, sealing the fate of seven more Marines. Twenty had given their lives for me, on one level I knew that was their job but it didn’t soften the blow much, if at all. The transport had blown holes in a good portion of the city looking for me, but it had retreated, in need of many repairs as the local militia had begun to open fire with handheld surface-to-air missiles. In all, thirty-eight alien troopers had fallen before the transport swooped down to pick up the survivors and make its hasty departure.
Drababan had finally stopped running and my bumpy ride had mercifully come to a conclusion. The tunnel had opened up into an underground train station, barren except for the burnt-out husk of a derailed engine car. Beer bottles and junk food wrappers littered the enclosure and the smell of urine was exceedingly strong. I was home and I couldn’t have been happier. Drababan walked a few paces and slouched his great bulk against one of the cement pillars, in my joy to be free I had forgotten how truly wounded he had been.
“Drababan?” I asked as I approached him.
“Step away from the prisoner, Mr. Talbot.”
I wheeled to see ten or so Marines enter the station cautiously, all of their weapons were trained on Drababan’s sagging body.
“Wait,” I said trying to put my self between them and their target. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand all I need to right now, Mr. Talbot. I lost twenty good Marines out there today saving your ass, and I’ll be damned if I go and let you get killed now.”
“He’s hurt, Colonel, surely you can see he’s no threat at the moment. And while I do gratefully acknowledge the sacrifice you and your men made, Drababan also had a part in my getting here.”
“Do you not remember him trying to kill you?” one of the Marines closest shouted. “That motherfucker is the enemy, we should be making shoes out of him!” As he approached, his finger squeezing ever so slightly more, hoping that Drababan would make some sort of move. Drababan merely looked on as the drama unfolded, it seemed that he couldn’t care less.
“You’re sure he isn’t going to kill you or anyone else for that matter?” A shorter figure asked as she pushed her way to the front. It was the woman who had saved my life twice, even covered in dirt, blood, and a camouflage uniform it was easy to see that she was beauty. The other Marines towered over her, but she commanded respect as she approached. They lowered their weapons, but never too far from the ready.
“Sergeant,” I said when I noticed her insignia and my tongue worked, “he’s injured, and yes I know he—I mean, they—are the enemy but he was as much a prisoner as I was. He was forced into that battle just like I was and I think that you can all tell that he’s done with that now. I’m asking you all to please put your weapons down and help him.” And as if on cue, Drababan coughed and more blood flew from his snout.
“Grubner,” the sergeant ordered, “get over there and do what you can for him. Baker, Fields, you cover him, if that thing so much as flinches, I want a belt”
Grubner didn’t flinch when the order came his way. I’ve got to hand it to those medics, they think nothing of their personal safety when it comes to the well being of others. Baker and Fields, however, didn’t seem nearly as confident. I approached Drababan with Grubner, after all he was human, he had to have some fear for his safety, getting shot was one thing, getting eaten was entirely another. He nodded to me as we got on either side of Drababan.
“Drababan, this man is going to help you,” I said, fearful that it already may have been too late.
“I would welcome that, Tal-bot.” He fell into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Indian Hill was abuzz, everybody had been crammed around the twenty or thirty televisions that were stationed throughout the complex. Everyone had seen what had transpired, but no one knew what had happened. Paul had kept the raid very tight to the vest in case there was a spy amongst them or at least a sympathizer, pretty much the same thing Paul figured, one definition let that person sleep easier at night. Paul had yet to hear from the Marine raiders and he was apprehensive as hell. He didn’t know how anyone could have survived the barrage the transport laid down, but if anyone could, Paul was confident it would be Mike. The guy was just about unstoppable. Whatever doubts Mike might harbor about his skills, Paul knew he would be the key to any type of successful resistance. The price had been high to save him but the payout would most assuredly be higher. Paul heard from the Marines almost ten hours later. The message was sent over a ham radio with a taped message. There was no doubt in his mind the aliens would be scanning the globe for any and all transmissions, so it would be a lot safer for the senders to put the message on tape and have it go off at a safe time when they could put as much distance between themselves and the radio. Four minutes after Paul received the message the bunker that had contained the sending radio had been destroyed.
‘The packages are in hand—will deliver on schedule.’
“Packages?” Paul muttered. “That has got to be an enunciation error.” But Paul knew better, the Marines wouldn’t have said the plural if they hadn’t meant it. What it meant he would find out soon enough he figured.
“Hey, Paul, at least you won’t have to stop any riots tonight,” Frank said leaning against the doorframe leading into Paul’s office, a drink in each hand.
“Double fisting it tonight?” Paul asked speculatively.
“No, not at the moment,” Frank answered. “I thought you might want to join me in a celebratory toast.”
Paul had to ponder for a moment, but the feeling of utter relief was flooding through him, “Actually, that sounds pretty good,” Paul said as he stood up to receive the proffered drink.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“So when is the next Worcester run?” Beth asked as she finished off her supper of canned apple pie and something that resembled meat, of which variety she didn’t dare ask.
Max looked at her a little curiously, “Why?” he asked cautiously.
“I would like a ride,” Beth answered.
“Lady, it’s not exactly a trip to the mall,” Max said, doing his best to impress the seriousness of the situation.
“It’s not that at all, Max. I’m trying to get somewhere. I’ve been here for three days. There’s someone I’m trying to get back to.”
In more ways than one, she thought.
“Lady, there is no ‘home’ anymore,” he said. “There’s just here.”
“Max, I know you won’t understand, but I need to. There’s some wrongs I need to right,” she said, having a hard time believing that she had to explain herself to an eleven year old. “There’s a place I know that might be safe.”
“You’re gonna leave this place for some other place that ‘might’ be safe?” he stressed.
She could see his logic but her determination remained “Max can I get a ride or not?”
Max understood the tables were turned. Here was an adult asking for his permission, even at his tender age he could understand the irony of it.
“What about the little ones?”
Beth stared at him, not understanding.
“They need a mother,” he said trying his best to put on a brave front, but Beth could’ve sworn that he turned his head to wipe an eye that wasn’t quite as dry as it previously was.
“Mother? Me? Max, I barely know them and I’m far from a mother.”
“But… but you’re the closest thing w
e… they have here.”
Beth’s stomach turned, she had not even really thought about what the children needed. Could she really leave them there all alone? But they were doing much better than she had been, if not for them her ticket would have already been punched.
“Come with me,” she answered.
“I can’t leave the little ones, who would take care of them?” Max’s lip trembled, he was done being grown-up, he wanted more than anything to have all of his responsibilities stripped away.
“No, all of you,” Beth said.
Max’s eyes lit up and then went out. “How? We’d never all fit in the car or even the pickup truck if you drove it.”
Beth’s heart was sinking. “What about the semi that you used to haul the liquor here?”
“We had to ditch that a few miles up the road in a rest stop. It was just too big to hide.”
“Is it still there?” she asked hoping beyond hope.
“It’s still there, but somebody torched it about two weeks ago.”
“Max, I’ve got to go. If you can’t all come with me I will get transportation for you when I get to where I’m going,” Beth said.
Max didn’t answer. He didn’t so much as say a word. Beth figured that her words were ringing hollow.
“Max, if you don’t let me catch a ride, I’ll just go back out and start walking.”
Now Max did look up, but his words shocked her. “I can’t let you do that.”
“What? Are you telling me I can’t leave? Am I a prisoner?”
“Whoa, wait, Lady.”
“And stop calling me ‘lady’, my name is Beth.” She spat.
“Okay-okay, Beth,” he said tentatively. “I can’t let you walk, you-know-who is still out there.”
Beth’s anger evaporated. She knew who Max was referring to.
“Are you sure?” she said softly, convinced if she talked too loudly he would somehow hear her and finish the job he had set out to do.
“Yeah, Johnny and a couple of the others have been keeping an eye on him. He keeps going back to the place where I found you, trying to pick up your trail, I guess.”
Beth shivered. “Why doesn’t he just go home?” Beth more said to herself.
“So you see, I can’t let you walk and if you’re that determined to leave,” Max said scornfully, “then you can get a ride. But only to Worcester—Sammie doesn’t like driving any farther than that.”
“Oh, thank you, Max,” Beth said as she kissed his cheek. Max blushed.
“Lad… I mean Beth, Worcester isn’t any better than the rest of the world right now.”
And without going any further, Beth knew what he meant. “Just have him get me to the city limits and I’ll stay to the tree line on the highway.”
“Are you sure, Beth? It’s been kinda nice having you around here,” Max said, hopefully.
“Max, it has been great to be here and I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you for what you’ve done for me, but this is something important, something I should have taken care of a lifetime ago. And I will send help as soon as I get there.”
“If you get there,” Max mumbled, hoping she didn’t see the tear that was once again beginning to well up.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“We should have just left him to die after the Durgan fight,” the interim Supreme Commander sneered.
His second-in-command did his best to hide his contempt for the commander, but barely. “It seems that your plan to show the hu-mans how weak and pathetic they are has backfired, your supremeness.” He bowed.
But the Interim Supreme Commander was far too angry at Talbot to even begin to notice the insolence that had dripped from his second-in-command’s words.
“Sub-Commander, I want you to launch everything that we have! Now!” he shouted.
“As you wish,” the sub-commander stated as he bowed again and turned to leave. He couldn’t wait to get back to his quarters to note in his officers log, this latest slip up from the Interim Supreme Commander. Once he showed this to the Council of Wisdom, the Interim Commander would be tried and executed and he would become a Supreme Commander himself and not of some ratty-ass discovery ship but for a full-blown Battle Cruiser. He nearly growled in anticipation, but while he was still under the thumb of that incompetent fool, he would do his best to make sure that his head stayed rested firmly on his neck.
The alien fighters and heavy bombers launched within minutes of the order. They had already been on a high alert status. Even with the unaided eye, people knew trouble was coming, like a giant meteor shower the ships lit up the night sky. Those who could, sought shelter underground. Some took up refuge in school buildings and town halls—the more prudent or at least more realistic took up sanctuary at their local churches. The attack was furious, swift, global and devastating. What little infrastructure had remained from the previous attack was now completely obliterated. The alien bombers were completely foreign to anything the Earth had been exposed to previously. They didn’t so much as drop bombs as they let go of an energy ball roughly fifteen feet in diameter from the underbelly of the vessel about five hundred feet from the ground. It stopped and exploded, the effect was not unlike that of a giant soap bubble on the ground. When it burst roughly twenty seconds after forming, everything from skyscrapers to blades of grass were sucked up into the vortex caused by the collapsing bubble, a mile across by almost half that length high of material was crushed into matter no bigger than a London double decker bus. What mathematicians that were still alive tried every calculation they could to figure out how it was even possible. Bubble bombs were dropped on every major metropolitan area on the planet. The effects were devastating and instantaneous. Hundreds of millions died in what the aliens called a war, whereas humanity saw it as wholesale slaughter. The few thousand jets that were able to be mustered and flown did some damage but not enough to stop the carnage. Two days after the bombings ceased, the ground troops began to land. Right as people thought the worst was over, as the old adage goes, they hadn’t seen anything yet. Devastator troops didn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians or domestic animals for that matter. They shot at everything that moved.
Indian Hill suffered no damage in those first few days of the occupation. But Boston twelve miles northeast was for the most part a memory now. That was something even die hard Yankees fans would not have ever wished. All communications had ceased from the once major metropolitan area because there was no one or nothing to deliver a message. The aliens set up one of their major headquarters a little south of Boston in Dedham. Resistance was brief and for the most part futile. People did harbor some hope when they realized their weapons could inflict damage but that was briefly lived when the return fire started. Scouting reports and shortwave communications made the reality even more disconcerting than what many had only imagined as being the worst case scenario. The only major city left standing on the eastern seaboard of the United States was Washington DC and that more as a political maneuver than an oversight. The aliens, it seemed, wanted the carnage to stop almost as much as humanity did, but for far more sinister reasons, at the rate people were dying it would become increasingly difficult to be able to harvest them as a valuable resource. The President acquiesced, there was no choice, he either surrendered or watched what little was left of his country crumble, there would be no third term for him even if it was allowable under the current Constitution. The aliens mustered their biggest forces in what was once the hub of the free world, every American monument was torn down. Every flag replaced and every remaining person was interred in make-shift holding areas. Many died in the first few days of captivity, most because of shock and hopelessness Many more would wish that they had gone out that way rather than endure the horrors about to be unleashed.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Beth walked slowly with Max as he led her out of the woods and to the rendezvous point with Sammie and the car. From time to time they stopped as they listened for Johnny’s signal that th
e way was all clear. Johnny was scouting ahead to make sure no one, especially her pursuer was anywhere in the vicinity.
“Surely by now he has to be gone from here?” Beth asked, concerned they were taking too long to get out of the woods and that she would have to begin her journey in Worcester in the burgeoning darkness.
“Probably,” Max answered. “Do you really want to take that chance though?” He stopped to look up at her to gauge her reaction.
She shivered. “No. Perhaps you’re right.”
“Perhaps?” He muttered, shaking his head.
“Max, stop,” a hushed voice said over the walkie-talkie.
Beth’s blood turned to ice.
“I hear something over in Cobbler’s Field,” came the tinny voice. “Let me check it out.”
Beth didn’t move for fear that she would divulge her location even though she was a good hundred and fifty to two hundred yards away from the other walkie-talkie’s owner.
