The Unlikely Defenders

by Scott Haworth

  After finishing with the sergeant, Sean found that Wagner was beginning his foolish assault. Sean watched as Wagner launched himself out of the ditch and ran at full speed towards the first enemy position. Sean was so stunned by his actions that he forgot to lay down covering fire. Wagner did not need it. When he was about ten feet away from the enemy mortar position he suddenly stopped in his tracks. Still standing perfectly upright, Wagner raised his rifle to his shoulder and sprayed the area with bullets. The sound of mortar explosions stopped and was replaced by small arms fire. Wagner threw himself to the ground as bullets kicked up tiny dust clouds around him.

  Sean snapped back to reality after the mortar rounds stopped falling. Remembering what Wagner had demanded, he brought his own rifle up and fired in the direction of the second enemy position. It was a futile gesture as the position was well out of sight. In his peripheral vision he saw another spectacular sight. Wagner, despite being under fire from the second position, suddenly stood up and ran directly at the group of enemies. He passed behind a sand dune, out of Sean’s sight. A cavalcade of gunshots rang out, followed by complete silence.

  Sean could not see what was happening. After several minutes of explosions and gunshots the eerie silence made him feel uncomfortable. After a minute a sole man slowly emerged from behind the dune. Sean whipped his rifle around and aimed it at the figure. It took him a second to make out the man’s familiar desert khaki uniform. Wagner slowly walked a few feet before collapsing into the sand.

  Sean hesitated as he watched Wagner fall down. He looked left and right down the road and saw nothing of interest. Still, he was reluctant to move. It’s over, it’s over, it’s over, he repeated to himself for a minute. Finally mustering enough courage to move, Sean crawled out of the ditch and cautiously walked towards Wagner. He swung his rifle back and forth, targeting threats that were clearly no longer there. It took him two full minutes to travel the forty yards to Wagner’s position.

  The sand around Wagner’s body was soaked with blood. He had several bullet wounds in both arms in addition to the large hole in his neck. Sean fell to his knees and ripped open the man’s uniform. There were a half dozen bullet fragments stuck to Wagner’s Kevlar body armor. Sean moved his hand to put pressure on Wagner’s neck but then hesitated. The bleeding from the wound had already slowed down to a trickle. Wagner’s heart was no longer pumping. Not knowing what else to do, Sean scooped Wagner’s body into his arms. He walked back to the ditch carrying Wagner like a bride over the threshold.

  Sean gently set Wagner’s body down into the ditch. He checked on the sergeant and found the man’s condition to be unchanged. With no more tasks to perform, Sean leaned back and rested his head on the sand. With the adrenaline in his body quickly dissipating, Sean suddenly felt exhausted. He closed his eyes and began to sob uncontrollably.

  It was several minutes before Sean was able to get his emotions under control. He checked the two Humvees that were not on fire for working radio equipment. He did not find any, but as it turned out he did not need to call for help. The first reinforcements arrived as he was making his way back to the ditch. They found Sean apparently standing guard over his fallen comrades. He was covered with sand and blood. His eyes were red with rage.

  All in all he looked very heroic.

  Chapter Five

  Anthony was twenty steps behind Nick as the two made their way onto campus. Much to Anthony’s dismay, Nick was about to do something very foolish. “Stop!” Anthony yelled over the crowd. He did not know whether or not Nick heard him. Either way Nick was not slowing down.

  Luckily fate intervened in the form of two hundred terrified college students. The swarm of refugees came running in the opposite direction of Nick and Anthony. Nick was forced to come to a complete stop in order to maneuver through the thick crowd. He cursed and shoved a few people in order to make a hole. He was almost in the clear when a hand grabbed him from behind.

  Anthony shoved his friend against the side of the building. He pressed his arm up against Nick’s chest just to make sure he had his full attention. “I said stop!” Anthony yelled.

  “Get off me!” Nick shouted. Since he was four inches taller and forty pounds heavier, Nick had no difficulty pushing Anthony back and freeing himself. Every fiber of his being was screaming to continue, but Nick paused where he was to talk to Anthony. “What the hell do you want?”

  Anthony took a deep breath. He knew he should not be mad at Nick. He spoke again with a much softer tone, “I’ve seen a lot of war movies in my time, and they’re all quite clear about not running across an open field.”

  Nick turned to look over his shoulder at the Oval. It was a large grassy area crisscrossed by pathways in the center of the Ohio State University campus. It was completely surrounded by classrooms, but the clearing was easily the size of a small park. Nick realized that his friend was making a fair amount of sense. Crossing out in the open was not an appealing idea. A series of energy blasts and screams coming from the direction of the Oval served to reiterate the point.

  “Well, I need to find Vicky and crossing the Oval is the fastest way to do that,” Nick said. There was still anger in his voice, but it was no longer directed at Anthony.

  “What building is she in?”

  “Dulles Hall,” Nick replied. “She’s got her English elective in the basement.”

  “All right,” Anthony said, looking to his right. He pointed in the same direction. “We’ll take the long way around the edge of the Oval. We can go down by the Ohio Union building, and then we’ll circle around and take 17th up to Dulles.”

  Nick sneered as he thought about the detour route. Already exhausted from the run to campus, he was sure he would have to slow down for the second leg of the journey. The detour would take them halfway across the gigantic campus. It would easily be another ten minutes before they reached Dulles Hall.

  “All right,” he said reluctantly.

  Nick took the lead and jogged off in the direction Anthony had indicated. Their trip through campus was surprisingly uneventful given the number of Kessiams who had landed in the area. While they encountered no aliens, Nick and Anthony did see several thousand students fleeing the area. As they were passing by the Ohio Union building they even had an unfortunate encounter with a member of the faculty.

  The elderly man was traveling in a perpendicular path to that of Nick and Anthony. He was having a hard time of it, breathing heavily and walking with a nasty limp. His face was white and he had a look of horror in his eyes. Nick recognized him at once and felt an instinctive need to hide.

  The man turned to catch a glimpse of the two young men who were walking towards him. It should have been another startling sight to him. One of the men was holding a blood-soaked tennis racket and the other had an alien weapon. Yet as he turned to look at Nick his face suddenly changed into a scowl. He narrowed his eyes and shook his head before turning back and going on about his way. His face lost its expression of terror, as if the encounter had made him forget that he was scared.

  “What the hell was that about?” Anthony asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Nick looked more disturbed than when he had seen the first Kessiam exit its pod. “Shit dude! That was my French History professor.”

  Anthony took a second to put two and two together. When he did he began to laugh uncontrollably.

  “That’s not funny! There’s only thirty people in the class. He totally recognized me. This is, like, the fifth lecture of his class I’ve skipped this quarter too.”

  Nick’s response only made Anthony laugh even harder. They walked another thirty feet before Anthony regained his composure enough to speak. “Man, you are busted,” he said, wiping the tears from his eyes. “The look on his face… like he was taking time out from being bat shit terrified to show his hatred for you! In the middle of fleeing from alien invaders he still managed to stop and scowl at you. That’s just how much he dislikes you!”

  Nick did not respond. He shook
his head and looked genuinely upset about the encounter with his professor.

  Anthony was terribly tickled that Nick was taking the encounter so hard, especially given all the far more important things he had to worry about. “Hey don’t worry. He’s got a gimp leg so he probably won’t survive the next few hours.”

  “You think?” Nick asked hopefully. His face brightened as he turned to look towards Anthony.

  The look on Anthony’s face indicated that he had been kidding. Nick turned away as he realized how morbid the entire exchange had been. The two continued their journey in silence. Just before they were about to turn down 17th Avenue, a barrage of energy blasts rang out.

  Anthony and Nick ran off the sidewalk and crouched down against the wall of the nearest building. Before they had time to debate their next course of action, two Kessiams came barreling around the corner and literally ran into them.

  Anthony reacted instinctively. He reached his right arm back and slammed his tennis racket into the Kessiam closest to him. The alien fell to the ground on its side. Anthony ignored the sound of an energy discharge very close to him. He rightly assumed that it had been Nick firing at the other alien. Instead Anthony moved forward a few feet and smashed his foot into the head of the alien who was sprawled out on the ground. He repeated the action two times until the bug’s head finally split open.

  Anthony turned back and found Nick standing over the corpse of the second alien. Nick shot him an approving nod to indicate that he was okay. Anthony took a step towards his friend but felt unbalanced as he began to walk. He looked down at his right tennis shoe which was covered with blood and brain matter. He sneered and looked at the bloody tennis racket in his right hand before finally looking back at Nick. Nick was completely spotless.

  Anthony violently rubbed his right shoe in the grass. “Why do I always have to be the one who gets covered in alien entrails?”

  Nick smiled as he bent down in front of the alien he had shot. He picked up the Kessiam’s weapon and handed it to Anthony. “Here! Quit your bitching,” he said playfully.

  Anthony took the directed energy weapon in his left hand and then compared it to the tennis racket that was still in his right hand. He tossed the racket against the side of the building and moved the pistol into his stronger hand. He turned it over and around several times. “How does it work?” he asked, without looking up from the weapon.

  Before Nick could respond, Anthony compressed the weapon’s tiny fire button. Unfortunately, he had the gun pointed almost directly at his head when he performed the action. There was a bright flash from the barrel of the gun as it discharged an energy shot. It was not visible to the naked eye, but Anthony could tell that the blast had traveled very near to his head. The left side of his face felt so hot that he feared he was on fire. He patted the side of his head vigorously as he attempted to put out the imaginary flame.

  Nick shook his head and scoffed at his friend. After a moment, Anthony calmed down enough to look embarrassed. He got the pistol pointed the right way in his hand and then lowered his arm to the ground. Nick did not get the chance to mock his friend’s stupidity.

  Another pair of Kessiams went skittering past Anthony and Nick. The aliens did not turn to look at the young men, but rather they continued down 17th Avenue moving as fast as their tiny legs would carry them. Anthony and Nick raised their arms to take aim at the aliens. Two energy blasts rang out in rapid succession. The aliens fell to the street dead. Anthony and Nick looked at each other in confusion. Neither of them had fired.

  Anthony jumped back as a figure emerged from around the corner of the building. He found himself staring directly at an alien energy weapon. The figure holding it was much too tall to be a Kessiam though. He calmed down as he switched his focus from the gun to its holder. “Whoa there, Tex,” he said, slowly pushing the pistol out of his face. “You could put somebody’s eye out with that thing.”

  Victoria Krieg lowered her weapon and shot a sly smile at Anthony. She was almost six feet tall and weighed only 120 pounds. Her small frame had earned her the not so adoring nickname of “Mosquito Bites” from a jealous Anthony. Despite his obvious and frequent objections, Victoria was widely considered to be quite pretty. This was especially true given that she was most often compared to the other women in her field of study. Astrophysics was far down on the list of majors known for its attractive people.

  Victoria was blindsided by Nick who had lunged towards her as soon as she had come into view. She turned her head in time to receive a passionate kiss from her fiancée. She stumbled as he pressed her back a few feet against the side of the building.

  Anthony reflexively turned his head away from the public show of affection. He sneered as he had many times before while watching them make out. He turned back after a few seconds to find that they were still going at it. He rolled his eyes and sighed heavily. Nick and Victoria were too wrapped up to notice.

  After a few seconds Nick finally broke himself away from Victoria’s lips. He moved his head to her shoulder and squeezed her tightly in a hug. “Thank God you’re okay! I was so worried about you.”

  “Yes,” Anthony mimicked. He spoke too softly for the others to hear. “Thank God.”

  Anthony had been hoping from the beginning to find Victoria dead. He felt guilty for thinking that way, but it was the truth. It was not the first fantasy he had about Nick’s fiancée being killed.

  Victoria smiled and put her hand against Nick’s neck. “Ewww you’re all sweaty. You run a marathon or something?”

  “I ran here all the way from the tennis courts,” Nick replied, smiling down at her.

  “Awww,” Victoria said, raising the pitch of her voice. “You came to rescue me?” she asked. She leaned forward and gave him a quick kiss.

  Anthony made a grand gesture at the two Kessiams in the street who had been gunned down by Victoria. “Seems like you already had everything under control,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Nick said, ignoring the true intent of Anthony’s statement. “I see you even got yourself a phaser.”

  Victoria brought the Kessiam weapon up to eye level and nodded. “Yeah, they have an impressive ability to manipulate particles. Although it’s not that far off from our own technology. And, of course, it’s not a phaser,” she said adding air quotes for the last word with two of the fingers on her free hand. “It’s actually a—”

  “Directed energy weapon,” Anthony jumped in before she could complete her sentence. “It fires concentrated energy particles at the speed of light. That’s why we don’t see anything except the flash from the barrel. It’s going so fast that for all intents and purposes the energy hits its target at the same time it’s fired.”

  Victoria raised an eyebrow. “How the hell do you know that?” she asked.

  “What, you think you’re the only one who studies particle physics?”

  “You don’t study your own major,” Victoria began. “You sure as hell wouldn’t study anything else.”

  “Fine, I saw a special on the Discovery Channel. It was about next generation military weaponry,” Anthony admitted. He paused as he thought how to phrase the insult that was running through his mind. “Kind of ironic though if you think about it. You spend forty thousand dollars on your education yet I know just as much as you from sitting on the couch and watching cable television.”

  “You know just as much as me?” Victoria said with a snort of indignation. “If you’d like to have a conversation about quarks and neutrinos I’ll show you—”

  “All right nerds, let’s calm down,” Nick said, diffusing the situation. “We still have a pesky little problem with all the praying mantis running around… mantises… manti?”

  “I think mantises is the plural,” Victoria helped.

  “Does this attack make any sense to you?” Anthony asked, changing the subject.

  “You’re right, it is pretty crazy,” Nick said.

  “No, I mean the actual attack. Why would they just land all o
ver the planet? Shouldn’t they be, you know, concentrating their attacks on important targets?”

  “Or just wiping us out from orbit?” Victoria agreed. “They’ve mastered interstellar travel, surely they have nuclear weapons.”

  “Maybe they’re just really stupid,” Nick suggested. “Or really lame. You remember that old movie Signs we rented last year?” he asked Anthony.

  Anthony nodded his head and smiled. “Yeah, if they’re anything like those shitty aliens we should just go get Super Soakers. They get killed by water so they attack a planet that’s two thirds covered in water? I mean what would happen if it was raining when they attacked? Would they just melt like the Wicked Witch of the West?”

  “And they didn’t even have weapons!” Nick agreed. “They just sprayed a little mist from their wrists. Because that’s threatening to a nation of gun lovers. And they didn’t wear clothes, what the hell was that about?”

  “Yeah,” Anthony continued. “Like humanity is the only species that developed a sense of modesty.”

  “Guys!” Victoria yelled, motioning wildly with her hands. “We have bigger concerns than shitty sci-fi films.”

  “Okay, so what do we do now?” Nick asked.

  Before either of the other two could answer, a rather large student went barreling past them down 17th Avenue. He was making very good speed given the heat and his tremendous girth. Perhaps more surprising was the noise he was making. He was letting out a piercing shriek of terror that seemed too high-pitched to be coming from such a heavyset individual. Nick, Anthony and Victoria all turned and aimed their weapons at the area behind the man. Nothing appeared in pursuit of him. The shrieking faded as the man ran out of range.