Alien Storm

by Ken Bebelle

  Cam took the next hundred yards at a brisk pace, the quiet tromp of boots the only sound. That high-pitched sound wasn’t anything like a Ringhead jumpship. Those flew cloaked and silent.

  “Jeeves, any sign of ships?” She whispered.

  “Negative.”

  “They still alive?”

  “Affirmative.”

  She paused at the entrance to the pool courtyard, halting the procession. At her nod, they divided into two groups. “O’Neill, take Bravo and circle behind the cabanas. Burke, keep the civvies out of harm’s way.”

  As she got closer to the pool, her thermal scan went berserk. What was once the pool where tourists splashed was now a smooth, icy surface trailing to a frosty rime on the courtyard stones. A thick white mist hung heavy over the pool, smelling of chlorine and ozone.

  “O’Neill, the pool is iced over. Get back here.” She hoped Base Camp understood the import of the thermal images she was broadcasting.

  “Sir, we found them.” His grim tone told her everything she needed to know.

  Her team hustled over to the cabana and found O’Neill hunched over Jonesy, his meaty arms pumping Jonesy’s chest frantically. Campbell sprawled on the ground, her golden hair matted in frost. Their helmets rolled back and forth on the ground.

  Rosie stifled a gasp and one of the busboys quickly crossed himself.

  Burke dashed over to Jonesy and checked his pulse. Cho knelt and lifted Campbell, her body flopping against his shoulder. Please, not Nell. It was supposed to safe here. Cam watched in despair as both Burke and Cho went to work. Campbell’s fine blonde hair fanned out on the stone pavers in icy strands and Cam wanted nothing more for Nell to get up and tuck her hair back that familiar way before covering it in the dark helmet liner.

  “Still no pulse. We need to shock him.” Burke said, bending over Jonesy’s body. O’Neill lifted his hands away as Burke slapped a silver disk from his kit onto Joney’s chest. The charge surged through him, arching his back off the tiles.

  Cho crouched over Campbell and clamped an autodoc on her arm, fingers drumming as the machine scanned her. Cam knelt on the other side and touched Campbell’s frozen hair. “Eleanor Campbell, wake up!” Cam watched Cho as he paused and then resumed scanning.

  “Damnit, Nell. Wake up now!”

  Mack paced the pool deck behind her, checking the corners and shadows.

  “C’mon buddy.” O’Neill whispered behind her.

  Cam started as Phillips barked in her ear. “Alvarez! What the hell are you doing? I told you to get the hell out of there! Missiles inbound. You have six minutes. Move your ass soldier!”

  Cam coughed, her throat dry. “Sir, I have two men down, we need to stabilize them.”

  She clenched her jaw as Cho shook his head and closed Nell’s wide blue eyes, taking away that stunned last look on Nell’s pale face. Feeling sick, Cam thought about the Campbell family. What will I say to them? She checked her gauntlet and saw that Jeeves had set the missile countdown timer.

  She couldn’t even bring herself to look at Burke still giving Jonesy CPR. Jonesy was like a brother to her. She recalled the photos in his locker, the beaming faces of his nieces and nephews, the proud smile of his mother. Cam pressed her palm hard against her eyes, trying to shove back the tears. I don’t want to get on the holo with Mama Jane. She felt a firm clasp on her shoulder and found Mack looming behind her.

  “We gotta go, LT.” She nodded, placing her other hand over his, taking comfort. As she glanced around, she saw that the rest of her team had all taken off their helmets and bowed their heads, giving silent farewell.

  She nodded at them and stood, her helmet hanging from her hand. She gave the order she didn’t want to. “Enough, Burke. We have to leave.”

  Burke kept going, giving her an angry glare, and right at that moment, Jonesy coughed.

  Burke paused and then Jonesy’s eyes opened.

  “Back up, Burke. You stink.” Jonesy rasped.

  Cam could feel the grin spreading on her face as a sharp sound split the air. The pool was cracking.

  Four

  Get Out Alive

  Cam watched in horror as the pool began glowing with an eerie cyan light. At the far edge of the courtyard, a pair of Needles Cam had failed to see earlier hummed to life, crackling and sparking with piercing blue light. The high-pitched noise blasted again, piercing their ears, followed by several low beats.

  Cam tried to make sense of it all. No wonder the sound had been coming from multiple locations, there had be other Needles elsewhere on site too.

  After the initial shock, her team donned their helmets, readying for combat. As one, they began to edge to the most defensible location, the small cabana building. They shoved their survivors inside, propped up Jonesy to let him rest, and deposited Nell’s body there as well.

  Cam and Mack took cover on the Women’s side of the cabana, shielded by a flimsy wooden panel. Burke and Garcia took the Men’s side while O’Neill and Cho hopped behind the hedge to gain cover and assemble the field artillery.

  Cam gripped her plasma rifle tight to her shoulder, her palms hot and damp under her gloves. Her HUD display jumped and winked out. The cracking continued, the light from the pool increasing to dazzling intensity. “Jeeves! What’s going on here? What can you see?”

  Quiet static on their comm channel. Why isn’t the AI responding? Damn. Cam tried to raise the base and got nothing there as well. Mack tapped on his gauntlet then gave her a minute shake of his head.

  Cam pressed herself into the side of the wooden structure. “Fuck. Tighten up, they’re coming.”

  The pool shattered and three Ringhead Hunters jumped out, flinging ice in all directions. Mack grunted, flinching away, pelted with shards. A plume of freezing mist sprayed out from the pool, stinging Cam’s eyes.

  Two Hunters landed on the near side of the deck, eight feet of skeletal alien horror. Thick white mist plumed off their dark limbs. A humid mix of chlorine and ozone washed over Cam, threatening to choke her. The nearest alien took a step forward, its clawed foot clicking on the tiled ground. Blooms of ice spread from the alien’s foot. With a loud snap the frozen tile shattered under its weight.

  The alien’s oblong head swiveled grotesquely and its dead black eyes locked with Cam. Cold steel bands of terror clamped around Cam’s lungs, driving the air from her body. The alien bellowed a gutteral challenge, the grating sound like sandpaper on her nerves. Her eyes tracked down, following runnels of water cascading down arms overlaid with ropy alien muscle. The pebbly blue skin at its elbows flexed obscenely and sinister spikes protruded from the Ringhead’s arms.

  Cam’s gaze locked on the hands, the talon-like fingers spread wide. In a blink, Cam was thrown back to another battle, another deadly confrontation. Icy talons gripped around her chest and Cam could hear the creaking of their leathery skin as the joints flexed. The razor tips slicing through her kevlar, puncturing her lungs, leaving her gasping for air like a fish out of water. She saw the cords of dark muscle on the alien arms writhing as the Ringhead clamped down and crushed her body to powder.

  Rage boiled up in her belly, searing away the past nightmare. Cam inhaled, the chill air filling her lungs with hate. She squeezed her trigger and bellowed, “Fire!”

  As one, her team opened up, targeting the two lead aliens and filling the quiet evening with the roar of plasma fire. She felt the hair on the back of her neck standing as the air came alive with the crackling energy they were throwing.

  Cam kept her fire trained on the lead Hunter, keeping her gun high, aiming for the vulnerable neck. The Hunter had both arms up, shielding its neck and steadily advancing on her position. Even through all the gunfire the alien growls came through. She started to back up slowly. “Mack, circle.”

  Mack grunted and began edging out to his right, keeping his plasma rifle firing as he went, angling for a better shot. As Mack gained a better angle, the Hunter stopped advancing. Cam pressed on, taking a step forward and letting ou
t a primal yell of fury. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the other Hunter on her left driven to its knees under a blistering attack from three plasma rifles and Cho’s blast cannon. The alien’s head was a blinding halo of plasma gas, colored green with vaporized Ringhead blood. The alien toppled under the relentless assault.

  Cam and Mack had brought their Hunter to a standstill. Clean up on aisle one, baby. This might be over in a moment. But where was the third Hunter?

  Cam squinted against the white hot plasma arcs and saw the cylinders on the far side of the pool glowing again, a fine mist filling the space between them. The third Hunter disappeared into the mist and then emerged from encased in icy armor over its torso and arms. Son of a bitch.

  “Cho, take out those cylinders!”

  Cho swiveled to target the cylinders while O’Neill brought his plasma rifle to bear. Burke and Garcia switched smoothly to target Cam’s problem and the additional firepower buckled the second Hunter. Before anyone could switch to the last alien, everything changed.

  One powerful lunge and the armored Hunter cleared the pool, landing directly in front of the blast cannon. Cho rotated the cannon up, aiming for the head. Steam rose as blast impacts chewed away the icy armor from the alien’s neck. The alien ignored the plasma fire that was now slamming into it from all directions. A fist the size of a sledgehammer smashed into the cannon and tossed it aside like a toy. The Hunter grabbed Cho by the vest, lifting him off the ground. Cho’s legs spasmed as ice crackled and spread across his chest. Bright blue fingers of ice crawled up his neck and Cho went still, his feet flailing as the Hunter shook him like a doll. Cho’s head dangled, as if his neck had simply stopped holding it up.

  O’Neill screamed, advancing on the alien, blasting away with his rifle. The Hunter dropped Cho’s body, jumped to O’Neill and wrenched the rifle out of his hands. It swung the rifle like a club and swatted O’Neill, flinging him to the side. O’Neill skidded to a stop at the edge of the pool in a heap.

  Cam began to back away from the last Hunter. “Burke, Garcia, swing left!”

  The four of them fanned out, keeping their distance while continuing to pound the alien with plasma fire. Cam felt her face heating from the energy discharges, sunburn at midnight. The Ringhead roared, staggering through their combined firepower, lunging for Burke with a vicious swipe of its claws. Burke ducked and rolled away, catching a glancing blow off his helmet. He rolled to the edge of the shrubs and lay still.

  Cam began edging forward, trying to stay in the Hunter’s blindside. “Pour it on!”

  Mack and Garcia switched to full auto and the air crackled with energy. Thick clouds of steam poured off the alien as their blasts chewed its armor away.

  Mack jumped out, goading the alien to turn and giving Cam a shot at the back of the alien’s neck. She kept firing, even as the alien grabbed Mack by the waist and began to shake him like a rag doll. At last, she saw that reassuring stripe in its skin that told her the plasma was burning in. The alien bellowed, a deep, animalistic roar that Cam felt vibrating her guts. The Hunter raised its arms with Mack, preparing to smash him to a pulp against the tiles, Jonesy lurched out from the cabana, throwing off his heat blanket. “Get down, soldier!”

  Jonesy swung out his modified assault rifle at the alien’s head, the sharp whine of the plasma charge the only warning sound. He fired, and the ensuing blast nearly took off the alien’s head and Mack’s eyebrows. The alien fell to the pool deck, its neck a smoking ruin of charred meat. Mack fell to the ground in a low crouch and shook his head. “Damn, son. Next time wait until I’m farther away!”

  Jonesy gave a crooked grin. “I’m outta juice anyhow.” He leaned on the wall of the cabana and slid to the floor in exhaustion, almost dropping his rifle.

  Cam ran over to Jonesy and knelt down beside him. “Idiot.” His pupils were wide and black. Next to him on the floor, two empty stim tab foils floated to the ground. “God dammit you’re going to be useless to me tomorrow.”

  He tried to pick his head up. “Gotta get through today to see tomorrow.”

  “All right, we’re getting full value from those stims. Get your gear together, we’re getting our asses out of here, now. Mack, get Burke back on his feet.”

  Cam looked over to O’Neill, who was now slapping at Cho’s cheeks. “Cho? Cho? Answer me, dammit!” Cam knew Cho was gone. Their youngest soldier, the baby of the team.

  The mission was FUBAR, and Cam still needed to get the rest of the team back to base camp before the missiles arrived. Two minutes.

  She ran over to the hedge and knelt down on the ground next to O’Neill, placing a hand on his shoulder the way Mack did for her. O’Neill’s shoulders shook, and Cam gave him a few seconds. All they could spare. No time for grief. Squeezing his shoulder she said, “We need to go.”

  O’Neill’s voice was stricken. “We can’t just leave them here!”

  “It’s too late for him and I can’t lose anyone else.”

  But she had an idea. They moved out Nell, laying her down next to Cho. From their packs, they pulled out heat blankets and wrapped their fallen comrades. Cam slapped a beacon on each of their vests. One minute.

  She radioed Base Camp. “Request air support, beacon recovery needed.”

  It was the best she could do, and now she turned to the next battle, getting the rest of her team out of Segovia alive.

  Five

  Missile Launch Aborted

  Her gauntlet countdown flashed, stuck on the 40 second mark. “Jeeves, report.”

  “Missile launch aborted.”

  Cam didn’t have time to look a gift drone in the mouth. She’d have to talk to Phillips about it later. If they made it out of here.

  Burke gathered the survivors, hustling them out of the cabana.

  They picked their way back through the lobby, the whole time on high alert. Cam didn’t for a minute believe the three aliens they’d taken out were the entire hunting party. Seemed on the small side to her, but she’d seen firsthand that just a handful of aliens could take out a hundred unarmed civilians.

  Her survivors were breathing hard, and she knew they were scared. It didn’t help that their coworkers and friends were lying scattered throughout the interior of the building. Having watched Cho die, Cam now understood why the dead villagers bore no obvious marks. These cylinders encased the aliens in an armor so cold, that it actually froze their victims to death on contact.

  She moved out the team and survivors to the front of the inn. She scanned the skies. Still clear...for now. She tried Base Camp. “I need a lift. Air support requested. We have civilians.”

  The response back was unsurprising. “Negative.”

  The Dubs were stretched thin as it was, most of their teams engaged in the northeast and in northern Europe. Keenan had been stationed in Finland first, supporting NATO troops. Then in the Yukon, training new combat teams in cold weather tactics. She missed him with an intensity that hurt, and one she’d learned to cope with. Now that she had seen the aliens' latest tech, she felt even further away from a future with Keenan. Peacetime and a wedding seemed delusional.

  Cam gauged the rocky terrain they’d come through to get here. Her three survivors were keeping it together, despite the horrors visited upon them. Now she hoped they possessed the physical stamina to hoof it out of here.

  The team split up and scattered among the boulders. Cam kept an eye on Jonesy as he gamely trudged through the terrain. They needed to get back to the launch point. The slow way used the main road, which might be a necessity now that civilians were here, who would have trouble with the ascent. Otherwise, her team would have scaled the cliffs.

  Cam felt tired, the emotional cost of losing Nell and Cho crashing upon her. She yanked open one of her vest pockets and shoved a stim tab under her tongue. The upper ripped through her, flushing her skin with heat and giving her the energy surge she desperately needed.

  Her adrenal glands going into overdrive, she’d pay a high price later, but at l
east she’d be alive. Hopefully.

  With quick steps, they picked their way across the landscape strewn with debris. Rosie stumbled, falling against Cam.

  The team kept them moving though and soon the cliffs were in sight. Cam turned to Rosie, “Ok, here’s what we are going to do. We’re going to clip into the ropes we left here and use our ascenders to pull us up. Can you handle it?”

  Rosie looked unsure for a moment, her eyes nervously evaluating the steep cliffs which rose tall and black before them. But she squared her shoulders and nodded.

  Cam continued, “Ok, I need you to explain to the boys about the plan.”

  Rosie turned to her colleagues and spoke rapidly. “Si, si.” Julio and Miguel both nodded.

  “Great.”

  Cam reached into her pack and Burke and Garcia did the same. Normally these climbs were fast because they didn’t rely on the device to actually tow them up the whole way. Instead, they had trained to rappel upward, speeding the process. But this would happen a lot differently now with O’Neill, Burke, and Garcia each carrying one civilian with them on the way up. Mack, Jonesy, and Cam would need to get up top first, then assist in pulling up the rest of the team and their cargo.

  Cam hooked into her rope and jumped up to a freerun up the side of the cliff while letting the reel take most of her weight. She always loved the climb up, even more exciting in the outdoors as opposed to a climbing gym. This time, she and Mack ran in tandem, giving Jonesy a boost between them.

  At the top, they began to reel in their colleagues, Cam huffing with exertion from the doubled weight. When Burke and his civvie pulled safely at the top, Cam took a sip of water and scanned the terrain. Their APC was still here, always a good sign. Her shoulders felt lighter, and she allowed herself to envision a good handoff of the survivors at base camp as she debriefed Phillips.