He’d often asked himself why they had decided to set themselves up right where surviving was hardest and most challenging. The answer was a reflection of the question. The fact it was difficult was what stood to protect them.
The harsh heat they had to shade themselves from could also burn Reaver and Rage flesh alike. The dangerous animals would cull the uneducated or unaware easier than it would them, experienced with such things. And the mountains on one side and the desert on the other provided natural barriers to hold back the hordes of Rages that would otherwise coalesce there. He’d doubted there were many places as good for the human race to develop and grow as where they had decided to set up shop.
But he’d been wrong. On his journey to the City of Denver, he’d come across the tree dwellers, who lived in the treehouses surrounded by so much opportunity it had made Donald envious. They too benefited from great natural barriers but lacked the more dangerous elements of the wild of the desert.
He might try to convince the rest of the Mountain’s Peak commune to go there, or perhaps to the City. They would need to figure how to get inside, as well as clear it of resident Rages but it was a definite option. It was always good to have plans for the future. It was what had kept his commune alive for so long. The future was always within reach. Even if he now knew it was staged to fail.
He heard a whining noise, like a strong wind down a long tunnel, accompanied by a high whistle that snagged on an outlying metal shard. Glancing up, Donald noted the trees were still and the leaves weren’t moving. It wasn’t the wind. Then what was making the noise?
The dust in the clearing began to swirl and spin, making circular motions and reaching up with multiple hands to welcome the small ship descending from the sky. A black box of protruding weapons that whined as it drew closer to the ground. It floated there a moment before picking a spot to set down.
It selected a short outcrop of flatland to Donald’s right. A hatch opened on the back and a gang of tall figures emerged.
It was them. The Bugs.
They were big—bigger than the one Donald had confronted before—and carried powerful plasma rifles, scoping out the area. They wore armour that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Buck Rogers, helmets with who knew what kind of scanners.
Donald wore no armour or helmet. He weighed the axe in his hands. What good was this going to do against them? They could probably vaporize a city with the tools they were carrying. And there were half a dozen of them. Donald was one guy.
The Bugs fanned out in traditional military fashion. The ship took off and floated above the ground, not high, and moved, strafing left to right, turning in tight circles to scan the area.
If Donald was going to move, he needed to do it soon.
98.
DONALD LEANED the axe against a tree. He wasn’t going to get close enough to use it unless they were kind enough to present themselves to him. Instead, he took out his bow and quiver. He nocked it and took aim. He thought again.
The greatest weapon we now have is your blood.
Donald put the arrow in his teeth and took out his knife. He slid it across his palm, forming a narrow furrow that seeped blood. He tucked his knife back in its holster and ran the arrowhead in the blood. He did the same to a total of three arrows. He couldn’t fit more in his mouth.
Now he needed to wait for an opening.
He didn’t want to have to face more than one of these things. In fact, he didn’t really want to face a single one! He watched the creatures to see what they intended on doing out here.
The Bugs headed toward the deep gouge they’d carved into the earth with their huge space-bound cannon. What they were looking for, Donald didn’t know. Surely there wouldn’t be much of the facility left after the scar they’d cut into the planet? It didn’t matter what they were there for, so long as they gave him a reasonable chance to fight.
They filed into the crevice one by one. A single soldier was left topside. It would stay above ground, it appeared, and watch their rear in case anything attacked them.
You guessed right, pal.
Donald nocked a bloodied arrow, took a deep breath and stood up. He aimed and released. The arrow whistled through the air. As he ducked down and nocked another arrow, he heard the unmistakable ting of the hard arrowhead striking the creature’s armour.
Damn!
A rattling noise as the creature, angry, looked for where the arrow had come from. With a little luck, Donald could get off a second shot before he needed to change location.
Donald nocked, stood, and aimed. The neck. He needed to aim for the gaps in the armour. He released.
The Bug chittered and raised its rifle.
Oh shit.
Donald ducked and threw himself backwards as the pulse rifle’s fire slammed into the fallen tree trunk he’d been crouching behind, vaporizing it, leaving a searing hole. Smoke tendrils rose from it as Donald’s eyes bulged and he took off into the forest.
99.
THE PLASMA fire traced Donald’s movement through the forest canopy. The liquid bolts made an odd noise, like a welder on glass. Zeew. Zeew. Zeew. Star Wars had come to life. His life.
Donald leapt over a tinkling stream and crashed through thick bushes. Now was not the time for stealth. It was the time to haul ass.
The worst thing was, he didn’t know if his second arrow had struck home or not. He couldn’t leave until he was certain his blood had entered the creature’s system.
He slowed down, crouched, and used every ounce of the sneaking ability he possessed. He came to a thick bush of yet more blackberries. He plucked one and put it in his mouth. If he was going to die—and he fully expected he would—he wanted to do it with a sweet taste in his gob. No need for death to be any more bitter than it already was.
His hand hadn’t even begun to heal yet, still seeping blood. For a moment, he stared at the liquid dripping from his body. He could actually feel his heart pumping like a factory machine set to overdrive, and the scent of it, the iron tang, entered his senses. Perhaps if he tasted it, if he put it in his mouth, he’d get the boost he needed. . .
Snap.
Something was moving through the foliage on the other side of his bush. Donald shook his head and focused on the task in hand. What was wrong with him? Of course, he already knew what it was. It was for the same reason he was trying to put his blood inside these damn creatures.
He was infected with Rage.
He pumped his fist, forcing more blood from his self-inflicted wound, and rubbed another arrowhead in it, caking it in the unnaturally dark claret.
Crack.
The Bug was getting closer. Donald took some strength in the fact this was not the Bug’s world. It was his. It was the only real advantage he had.
Donald listened carefully, to the crunching footsteps—did it even have feet?—as it moved, searching, trying to identify the direction Donald had gone. They might have technology up the wazoo but he bet it couldn’t help much with tracking. It took experience and a keen eye to make out the subtle differences in the way the grass was curled over and pressed to the soil, the way dirt shifted beneath a boot or an animal’s hoof. These were the tools of the expert tracker.
Snap.
Close, to Donald’s left. If he came up slowly he might be able to release his arrow and strike the creature in a gap in its armour. He came up, arrow nocked, aiming with his eye. . .
And came face to face with the creature.
Oh.
Donald brought his bow around and released but the Bug threw out a powerful front limb, knocking the bow aside and striking Donald to the ground. The creature raised its pulse rifle and opened fire.
Donald found his feet and dove aside. The creature hissed and aimed again. Donald launched again.
The Bug fired in a single beam that sliced through the soil and trees. It caught Donald’s right foot. He knew it was bad before he even landed behind a large rock.
The rock blocked the laser beam but
wouldn’t do so for long. Donald could hear the atoms inside the rock bubbling and spewing, stinking like charred metal. The top of his boot had been sliced off, and thick black blood squeezed from what remained of his five digits.
The trees the alien rifle had previously cut began to fall, weight coming down in Donald’s direction. He threw himself forward, down the incline, flopping into a thin muddy stream.
The creature hissed, clicking with its mandibles. It dashed aside to avoid the tree crushing it.
Donald walked on his injured foot with a heavy limp, working his way up the incline, back in the direction he’d fallen from. It was a fifty-fifty gamble. He couldn’t follow the stream and run. The route was too long and uneventful. The creature would shoot him down like a dog. The only other option was rising up the other embankment. But he expected the Bug to come down that side. Really, it was nothing more than a hunch.
The trunk of the fallen tree glowed orange like a piece of paper held too close to a fire. He would wait here to see what the Bug did next.
Tha-dump!
Another tree fell somewhere in the middle distance. The plasma laser had seared right through the forest, carving up anything in its path. An unfortunate squirrel lay sliced in half, an acorn still clutched in its tiny paws.
Donald lifted his leg over the trunk and hopped over, letting himself fall onto the other side. Pain like a chainsaw zigzagged up his legs from his severed toes. He bit his tongue to avoid screaming.
His bow and quiver were lost but he still had hold of his axe. He pressed his forehead to the reassuring cold metal.
Had his earlier arrow struck the creature? He didn’t know. He still couldn’t take the risk it hadn’t. He had to seed this damn thing with his infected blood or die trying.
His palm sweated beads of purple. He ran his hand over the twin blades of his axe and then the spike on the end. His brow was wet with sweat, matting his wayward hair to his forehead.
Below, the creature waded into the thin stream of water. A soft rushing sound as it turned to look where Donald had gone. Donald didn’t move a muscle. He couldn’t afford to make a sound. Not right now. But time was not on his side. He had to act fast. Despite his instincts screaming at him, telling him to stay down and out of harm’s way, he had to politely but firmly push them aside. This was too important to play safe.
He picked up a rock about half the size of his hand. He threw it in an arc overhead so it landed on the other side of the embankment. He didn’t watch it. He couldn’t take the risk the creature would see him. In his mind, he counted down the seconds until it thudded to the ground.
Just as he expected the rock to land, he vaulted over the fallen tree and pushed off with his feet. The pain throbbed in his phantom toes as he sailed like a wraith down, down, down, pulling the axe back above his head in his descent toward where, in his mind, the creature would be.
The soldier was in the process of turning its back on Donald, checking the sound on the opposite rise. It seemed to realize its mistake—a moment too late—and turned to face him. It was fast but not fast enough, as Donald brought the axe head down.
The Bug whipped its plasma rifle up and succeeded only in blocking Donald’s powerful blow. The rifle took the brunt of the attack, buried deep in its main body, not quite slicing through it but doing enough damage to write it off.
The alien swiped at Donald with a truncated foot, striking him full in the face. It was a half blow but still sent him reeling. Donald’s left hand lost its grip, his stronger right hand maintained it. The axe pulled free from the plasma rifle as Donald fell to the muddy embankment.
The Bug brought the rifle around and squeezed the trigger. The rifle fizzled with green energy and sparked, thick green liquid leaking out the nozzle like a broken tap. The creature snarled and tossed the useless weapon aside. It didn’t need advanced tech to beat Donald to a bloody pulp. It was more than strong enough to do that by itself.
Donald got to his feet, shifting his weight in the process. Before he could raise the axe, the creature swung another thick appendage, sending him sprawling and crashing in the water.
Oh, this is going to be fun. Not.
Donald coughed a thick wad of blood. Somewhere, he was bleeding internally. This is getting better and better. He struggled to his knees. The alien pushed him back so he flopped in the dirty water. The creature appeared to be enjoying this. It didn’t smile—he didn’t even know if it was capable of that—but it could have ended his life any moment it chose. Instead, it opted to prolong Donald’s agony.
Lucky me.
The Bug aircraft passed overhead, visible through the tree canopy overhead. It was time to go. The mission, whatever it was, had come to an end.
This was it, Donald realized. This was the moment. He would either succeed or fail. Right here, right now.
The craft banked to one side and returned to the flatland in the clearing. That was where the Bug would meet it and return to its comrades.
Donald’s time was up.
He struggled to his feet, stood upright, like a man ready to accept his fate. He didn’t know if honour or valour was a trait understood by the Bugs but it let him look it in the eyes.
The Bug raised its powerful front limb, preparing to bring it down and pummel Donald into the earth. Donald, reacting instinctively, raised his arm in defense. It would make no difference. The Bug was far stronger than him. The creature’s arm would smash through his bones as if they were hollow.
Thunk!
Donald, startled he was still alive, opened his eyes. The creature, equally shocked, shied back. It looked at its own front limbs in confusion.
Donald recovered fast. He slipped his foot up under his axe on the ground, lifted it up, and slammed the point into the creature’s armour, piercing it. Donald didn’t know what the armour was made of—probably some material unknown on Earth—but it gave way like tissue paper.
The creature grasped the axe, still in shock. Donald kicked the alien with a front snap kick, knocking the Bug back. Donald stood over it, axe in hand. The creature stared up at the human, before scrambling up and climbing the embankment.
Its blue blood leaked from its body. It wasn’t dead. Not yet. It limped away in surrender, heading back to the plain where its ship was waiting.
Donald raised his arm and pulled back the torn shirt sleeve. It hurt. It should more than hurt—it should have been pulverized! A giant black welt was already beginning to form. It would be his semi-Bug DNA that had saved him. Some part of the Bug’s hard outer shell had strengthened his own bones. His flesh was still very much human and his thick black-red blood dripped in copious pools to the foliage floor.
Part human, part Bug, part Rage. How was he not already dead?
The Bug ship banked hard and took off, defying gravity. Right now, the altered virus would be spreading inside the Bug’s body, infecting it, turning it into. . . well, Donald didn’t actually know what. Some kind of Bug Rage?
Let’s see how you cope with it, assholes!
Donald turned and walked away, gripping his damaged arm in his free hand. They could kill him now and he would still have that grin on his face. He’d achieved his mission. It was about time they experienced a little of the medicine they’d been dosing the human—and for all he knew, dozens of other—races with.
Dr. Beck was right. When you fought a much more developed and dangerous enemy, and your skills and abilities counted for little, you had to use its own strength against it.
Hoo-rah.
100.
TRAVELLING AT lightspeed was an odd sensation. Not the speed itself—the Mothership appeared to have no trouble maintaining it and in fact only presented a smoother ride. Time slowed when you travelled at this speed, a concept difficult for the human mind to fully grasp, not least Lucy’s. She could be presented with complex equations and mathematical principles all day long but she still couldn’t understand it. She relied on Computer to present it in simple terms to her.
&nb
sp; Travelling at near the speed of light meant you witnessed incredible things. It took them ten minutes to reach Mars. Lucy was careful to use it to create a barrier between themselves and the Earth, specifically the location they’d been when they’d started their journey. No doubt the Bugs would have sent powerful ships by now.
Half an hour later, and they were passing the distance Jupiter moved around the Sun. It was currently elsewhere in the solar system doing its rounds, so they couldn’t use it to block their passage as they had with Mars. Saturn was their next stop, and it took another forty minutes at the speed of light before they reached it. They moved into Saturn’s shadow and came to a stop.
Tucked behind this beautiful planet, they could go totally unseen as the Bugs, wherever they were right now, couldn’t pick up on their signal. Also, their drones couldn’t travel anywhere near the speed of light, so they needed to stop to prepare their messages to the Covenant.
“Okay, it’s official,” Jamie said. “This is the furthest I’ve ever been from home.”
Lucy smiled. She liked looking at the twinkling lights in the velvet blanket of space. It was relaxing to think no matter what they did, whether they were successful in their mission or not, the universe would carry on without them regardless.
They needed a little more time for Computer to knock the quantum drive back into shape. Lucy had already drafted the message she wanted to send. No doubt the alien species they’d send their message to wouldn’t understand English but she figured they would have interacted with many other languages and cultures over the eons and so could figure out what the message actually meant.
After the Fall- The Complete series Box Set Page 59
