by Travis Hill
“No, Sir. But a few roamers like me are scattered throughout your people and along the western edge, just in case Zeta or X-Ray gets smoked before they can get a shot off. Fucking Bulls have no problem spotting us in the daytime.” She spat into the dirt.
“Perfect.” I said, thankful Collins sent us someone who knew what to do and had a weapon that could do real damage to the deadliest of Bull threats—other than the mothership in orbit above us.
Her radio buzzed and she pulled it from a leg pocket. I ignored her for a few minutes as I marched up and down the line, giving encouragement to the troops, allaying any fears that had risen. Sergeant Featherston caught up to me and tugged on my jacket.
“Sir, Bulls are now at ten klicks from our position. Get everyone ready. Tell them to stay hidden as best they can until the ships are down then we’ll light up the road from both sides.”
“Roger that,” I said and waved to Spider.
He arrived after almost tripping over his feet because of his inability to look away from Sergeant Featherston’s face. I had a sudden thought that he was more likely to die from his own bungling around women than from a Bull vaporizing him.
“Spider, make your way down the line to my left and remind everyone to dig in and stay dark until the airships are down, then concentrate fire into the ground units on the road.”
“Yes, sir,” he said and gave me a salute before nearly stumbling over his own legs.
“Cute kid,” Featherston said, watching him jog down the trail.
“He’s awful around women,” I said with a wink.
“Like… he’s a jerk?”
“No,” I chuckled. “He’s just a kid and probably a virgin.”
“Got it,” she said, her eyes still following Spider.
“I can help you two hook up after this if you want,” I said with a serious face, though it was hard to hold in my laughter at the thought of the freckled young woman being sweet and intimate with the gangly teenager.
“If we live long enough for that to be a reality, then I wouldn’t say no to being his first,” Sergeant Featherston said, nodding her head as if swearing a solemn vow. “I’ll hit the right side of the line.”
I looked around for Druscilla. She’d been avoiding me for days. There was a rift between us that I hoped would eventually heal. I knew she had feelings for me, or at least I was sure that’s what the problem was. I doubted she was jealous of Rebecca other than she liked Rebecca as much if not more than I did. I shook my head to clear it of useless thoughts. The Bulls were only minutes away and I needed to keep my head on straight.
I wasn’t a stranger to Bull soldiers. I’d annoyed them a few times during my travels when our paths crossed, and even scared the daylights out of Dane Boedeker with my antics up near Portland one day. But I’d never had to fight one, or a hundred as the case probably was today.
They might have a thousand troops stuffed into their airships and ground cars for all I knew. What I did know for sure was a lot of human beings were going to lose their lives over the next few hours. Or the next few minutes if things went south quickly.
“Everyone’s ready, sir,” Spider said after returning. His eyes searched the ridge for Sergeant Featherston. At least that’s what I imagined he was doing.
“Good job, Private,” I said and put my arm around his shoulder. “Listen to me carefully, Spider.” He looked up at me and I imagined it was the same look I’d given my father dozens of times when he was about to impart some important life lesson. “I want you to head down to the canyon and meet up with Sergeant Ellis. He’s a huge black man who looks like he’d rather rip off your arms than have a beer with you. Along the way, grab Sanders, Dillon, Johansen, and Yaniv. Tell Sergeant Ellis you’re to assist him in evacuating C2. You stick with those civilians no matter what, Spider. When they reach Crescent or Gilchrist, wherever their backup hiding spot is, you’re to take Yaniv and Sanders and head back to The Farm. Let Mom know what’s happening and have her get the council to order triple patrols. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” he said, happy to be entrusted with such an important mission even if it meant he wouldn’t be part of the fight. “Will Sergeant Dru be—”
“Don’t worry about Druscilla,” I said, keeping my expression businesslike. “She’s tougher than you, me, and Tony combined. If only one human survives this rumble, it will be her. Now GO!”
I slapped him on the shoulder to let him know to shut up and move. He ran down the line while calling out for the soldiers I’d ordered him to take as an escort. We needed bodies for the upcoming battle, but I couldn’t let Spider be a part of it. Even though the kid had guts and was a good shot with his rifle, I didn’t want him to be another dead citizen someone would have to eventually report to The Farm.
“Lt. Greggs,” Featherston said from my right. I glanced around and nodded at her. “Ships are coming over the tree line now, eight klicks.”
“Get ready, people!” I shouted. I listened as my words were passed down the lines. “How long before they arrive?” I asked the sergeant.
“Less than five minutes unless they get distracted,” she answered.
I saluted her then ran toward the edge of the ridge to look down into the shallow valley. I couldn’t see any humans other than my own people to my rear. I squinted my eyes and searched the treetops but couldn’t see anything other than white fluffy clouds meeting green pines all the way to the horizon. I stood still for almost a minute before I heard footsteps approaching. I turned to see Druscilla, a permanent frown pasted on her face.
“Come on, Evan,” she said in a low voice and pulled me back into the trees by the arm. “You’ll be the first one they shoot if you stand in the open like a dumbass.”
“Are we friends?” I whispered as I set up behind a large rock eroded by wind and rain over thousands of years.
“Why wouldn’t we be friends?” she asked, keeping her eyes peeled to the south.
“Because you’re pretty pissed at me.”
“So what?” she asked, finally looking at me. “I’m always pissed at someone. Today just happens to be you.”
“And yesterday? The day before? The last week or two?”
“Shut up,” she said. When I glared at her, she grinned. “Fuck off if you think I’m going to call you ‘sir’ or address you as ‘lieutenant.’”
I smiled and nodded then focused my attention to the south. The anticipation of the coming battle made my stomach twist itself into knots, but it settled when I felt Dru’s hand slip into mine. I didn’t bother looking at her, knowing if I did she’d say something crass or insulting just to annoy me. We held on tight until I saw the first flash of sunlight on metal in the distance. She squeezed until my fingers ached but neither of us let go until a second ship appeared as if out of nowhere.
“Incoming!” Sergeant Featherston shouted from my right. “Hold your fire until those ships are down!”
Word was passed down the line once again. The three dozen soldiers on either side of me looked frightened, angry, and somehow determined. I knew they were pissed at me for keeping them here. A lot of them would be even more pissed when their friends or lovers died—senseless deaths that could have been avoided by going home the night before. I thought of Tony, Spider, and Rebecca.
A hard squeeze of my hand focused my mind on the young woman next to me. I liked her, but I felt weird at the age difference. Fourteen years was a significant gulf, though I had to admit Druscilla was as mature as me. My mental wandering was interrupted by a third and fourth airship appearing a klick behind the two slowly approaching our positions.
The Bull ships didn’t look anything like the sleek, deadly vessels I imagined they would. They looked exactly like the crashed ship Tony and I found northwest of The Farm. Even so, they filled me with dread. Everyone would be brave until the bullets (and plasma) started flying and soldiers started dying. I felt a morbid sense of relief when one of the shuttles opened up on a small hill a few klicks to the south. I wouldn’t be the first
one to die. Dru tensed, leaned over and kissed me on the cheek, then scooted down the line to get a better bead on the road.
I watched with horrified fascination as two of the shuttles rotated around and chewed up the hillside with multiple plasma cannons. The ships hovered like a helicopter but without any of the downdraft from rotors or turbine engines. It hurt my brain to think too much about how they were able to defy gravity or the laws of physics in such a way. The aliens’ ability to launch orbital strikes should have made their vehicles’ ability to hover seem normal.
I wasn’t sure if the ships’ weapons were silent when firing or just too far away to be heard, but the noise from their ordnance impacting targets definitely made a sound. Every time an orb of white plasma hit anything it made a strange but unique “pop” noise. Some were brighter, shorter than others. I imagined the deep, resonating pops were from hitting things like rocks, dirt, and trees. The shorter, snappier ones must have been human bodies being annihilated by the intense heat from the plasma.
The two leading shuttles slowed down, inching forward until the two attacking shuttles decided they’d done enough damage to the hill and moved on. I looked around one more time, seeing awe on most faces, anger on some, possibly blinding fear on others. I wanted to say something encouraging, maybe even patriotic, but decided to keep my mouth shut and wait for the missile teams to do their job.
The four shuttles were within a klick of us when the ground cars appeared on the road. I hadn’t been able to spot them thanks to the twisting, turning highway and thick trees. I swallowed hard as I counted eight vehicles. All eight were at least the size of a shuttle. I couldn’t make out any weaponry attached to the hovering transports, but I could definitely make out the two large doors on the sides facing me. I knew there would be two more doors on the opposite side and likely a rear exit as well.
As one, four missiles shot out from four different locations around the valley. The airships immediately went into defensive maneuvers mode, but two were struck broadside. One exploded in the air, hot, molten metal and dark liquid raining down from the sky. The second one sped up and slammed into a rocky overhang before tumbling to the bottom of the valley where it was hit by a second missile from less than fifty meters away. A third shuttle was hit in the rear and it dived and bobbled for a few seconds before righting itself, though it listed heavily and seemed to have trouble staying above the trees.
The fourth shuttle shot out thousands of tiny metal shards as it rose almost a thousand meters into the sky. The first missile detonated in the chaff cloud. A second missile streaked into the sky after it but more of the reflective shards fell and the missile exploded half a klick from the ship’s belly. The damaged shuttle immediately opened up on the ridge opposite of ours. I winced at the intensity of automatic fire from the heavy cannons. The hill the aliens attacked only moments earlier must have been a test for them, as the guns on the crippled shuttle fired far faster than I thought possible.
Luckily for the soldiers along the western ridge, the ship had a hard time keeping an even keel. Its plasma cannons rained death along the tree line, but it was an uneven field of fire as the shuttle constantly had to correct its pitch, yaw, and altitude. I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye and sent a mental good luck to Sergeant Featherston as she moved out of the trees and readied her M-200 launcher.
At that moment, two things happened. The ground vehicles stopped in unison and the doors rolled up, armored Bull soldiers pouring out into the valley while the fourth shuttle pointed itself toward the ground and began its dive, plasma bolts walking a steady line of fire up the hillside toward our position. I heard a pop and a whoosh as Featherston’s M-200 activated, then a second pop along with a blast of heat as the shuttle’s plasma cannon vaporized the sergeant and anyone within three meters of her. I looked back down into the valley at the exhaust streaks from multiple M-200 rockets. We only had to worry about two shuttles and five ground transports now, though all of the undamaged transports had emptied their troops.
“Focus your fire!” I screamed as loud as I could and aimed my rifle at the first Bull I saw.
The scope on my G-36 brought the Bull into instant, sharp focus and I pulled the trigger twice. I elected to stick to selective fire to conserve ammo. It was too easy to spot Bulls with the scope and hit them with the armor piercing rounds with a single shot, though I heard plenty of chatter all over the valley as others fired on full auto. I ventilated a Bull’s head then moved the barrel slightly left, putting two into the chest of another. The strange pop-pop-pop of plasma from the shuttle once again walked a line across the ridge toward us.
I did my best to ignore the heat, the noise, the screams of human soldiers as the shuttles and the Bull soldiers poured plasma into us. I nearly broke and retreated when I saw the aliens charging up the hillsides. I’d never seen a Bull run before. It was more than frightening. It seemed counterintuitive that a two-legged, four-armed alien with combat armor and dual plasma repeaters could move as fast as a human-sized spider. Their sudden burst of speed made it far harder to track them even with my upgraded scope.
The damaged shuttle exploded in a bright flare of fire and plasma, the blast rocking the valley as one of its engines suffered a catastrophic hit from another M-200. The ship slammed to the ground, pieces of it falling in a hundred meter radius. At least a dozen Bulls were killed from either the blast or the crash but it didn’t seem to faze them at all. Three ran up the hill directly toward me, dodging left and right as we blanketed the air around them with withering fire.
Two went down hard, rolling all the way to the bottom. The third Bull made it to the top of the ridge thanks to the bursts of covering fire from the remaining shuttle. I dove backward just as the Bull’s weapons fired in dual arcs, a plasma bolt barely missing me by less than a meter. I rolled over onto my knees, put the alien in my scope’s crosshairs and pulled the trigger half a dozen times before going prone as its dying volley ate up the trees and rocks around me. A massive blast from the shuttle’s gun lifted me off the ground. My faced slammed into the earth, nearly taking an eye out on a broken tree branch.
Instead of losing my right eye, I ended up with a painful hole in my cheek. I touched it with my finger, afraid I’d be able to insert it all the way into my mouth. Relief flooded through me as I felt the flaps of broken skin but not the massive hole I imagined. I picked myself up, grabbed my G-36, shifted the AR-17 around on my back, and ran forward. The shuttle had turned and was firing into the trees along the western ridge while dozens of Bulls swarmed up the sides, their guns creating a crossfire too lethal to escape.
I rounded up eight others and we began firing into the Bulls. At least ten of them dropped to the ground but the shuttle swung around and fired again, killing six of my soldiers. I dodged and weaved through the rocks and trees, coming out of the tree line twenty meters to the north. Once again I knelt down and began picking off Bulls. I barely had time to wonder just how many of them there were before the shuttle started its turn toward me.
I took off at a dead run into the thick pines, praying they would provide enough cover once the Bull ship fired. Two volleys arrived where I had been only seconds before, a third destroying a dozen trees behind me. I felt a sharp, hot pain in my shoulder. I didn’t bother to reach back to see if I’d been hit with a splinter or a ball of burning sap. My only goal was to concentrate on my feet to make sure I didn’t stumble and fall.
I ran for almost a full klick toward Base Charlie before slowing down to take stock of the situation. Out of the one hundred soldiers on the ridge with me, I seemed to be the only one left. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, refusing to believe Druscilla had died. My brain replayed the memory of Sergeant Featherston being obliterated only meters from me. After a few seconds, my breathing became deeper and I felt as if I could think straight again even though my entire body ached from the adrenaline surge that wouldn’t shut off.
It took almost five minutes to get to a high spot. The
valley and hillsides behind me were hidden behind a wall of smoke—some white, most of it a tan-brown from the burning trees and brush. I could make out multiple columns of oily black smoke from the downed shuttles and burning ground transports. That forced me to look up, as if the remaining airship might be bearing down on me, but I saw nothing. Indecision kept me from doing anything for another two minutes until I decided it was safer to head back to Base Charlie and begin working my way to Alpha Point, the location we had decided on should things go bad. I hoped Jackie and Larry had seen the fight from far enough away to pull back instead of continuing toward the base to replace those who wanted to go back to The Farm.
I was the only human survivor as far as I could tell, which meant most of our people would never make it home.
8. Escape Plans
I was one of the first to arrive at the head of the canyon leading to Base Charlie. At least ten others already waited, caked with soot or nursing plasma burns. I kneeled behind a rock and watched the valley I’d just come from, seeing a few more stragglers over the next two minutes. Then came the flood. At least two hundred soldiers materialized from the trees and smoke, racing across the low hills at a dead run.
Those of us waiting silently cheered them on while waving wildly at them to hurry. I looked back toward the base but there was no visible activity. The sounds of Bull weapons firing from the campground above us made everyone turn. I waved at the men and women closest to me and ran up the hillside, stumbling twice on the loose rocks and dirt. Just as I reached the top, two massive booms shook the ground followed by the strange pop-pop-pop of the airship’s guns grinding up whatever the Bull soldiers didn’t.
I ran behind a corrugated metal shed. Three more soldiers came to a stop behind me. I peeked around the corner of the building to see three Bulls moving quickly toward a small wooden hut fifty meters to my left. I tried to tune out the destruction going on around me, but two more airships were suddenly blasting away. I spent a precious few seconds wondering if the Bulls had a dozen more ships on the way, if Rebecca was alive, and how many aliens Dru had murdered.
