Alien Storm

by Ken Bebelle

  The sun burned directly overhead. The distance to the truck seemed to stretch out before her, distorted through heat haze. Cam’s legs pumped, her muscles singing with fatigue. The air in her suit tasted hot and sweaty.

  Cam’s legs were lead weights now and getting heavier. The view through her visor blurred and jumped, causing the jumpship to flicker in and out of existence before her. The earth pitched, and Cam slid sideways, landing on her shoulder. Fresh pain exploded in her arm and she found herself on the dirt, drenched in sweat, panting uncontrollably. She was going to cook in this armor.

  The truck was just a few meters away. Cam struggled to her knees to crawl the last few meters.

  Stinging pain lanced through the back of her head. She whipped her head around in time to see the lead Hunter advancing on her, reaching one clawed hand for her. The anguish and horror of losing her team in Segovia surged out and crashed over her, freezing her in place, unable to do anything but watch as the Hunter closed on her. Its massive hand wrapped around her face, razor talons digging into her neck. Cam waited for the darkness to come.

  AJ saved her. The helmet went rigid at the Hunter’s touch, keeping Cam’s head from getting pulped. The Hunter pulled Cam to her feet, dragging her up by the neck. The alien howled and shook her by the neck. Cam watched this from inside herself, surrounded by the ghosts of her dead teammates.

  The Hunter reached back and threw Cam's limp body, slamming her into the truck. The truck rocked up on two wheels and crashed back down. Cam found herself wedged into a massive dent in the door. The Ringhead stalked towards her, winding up as it came. Pinned into the wreckage, Cam couldn’t move as the alien smashed its fist into her torso.

  AJ came alive again, stiffening at the point of impact, but the effect was weaker this time. Cam’s breath exploded from her and the world dimmed at the edges. Something sharp cracked in her left shoulder, a white hot pinpoint of pain. Two more Ringheads arrived behind this asshole beating the pulp out of her. They stood back like they were waiting their turn. Cam’s terror began to burn with anger.

  The first Hunter grabbed her again by her head, yanking her out of the car door. The point of pain in her shoulder exploded in a halo of crimson pain as bones creaked and scraped in odd directions. Cam lifted her right arm -- her left wasn’t responding -- and grabbed hold of the Hunter’s arm. She squeezed as hard as she could and she felt her armor responding, her fingertips extending into precise blades that sunk deep into the alien’s arm, severing muscle and tendon.

  The Hunter roared, green ichor dripping from its arm. Cam screamed in rage and twisted her hand, severing the Hunter’s arm at the wrist. She dropped to the dirt, her broken shoulder flaring in agony again as she landed. From her crouch she kicked out at the Hunter’s knee. Another bloom of pain robbed her kick of most of its strength. Rather than felling the alien, it came down on its knees, bringing its head level with hers. Its head had no ice armor.

  I’ll take it.

  Cam thrust her right hand out and spiked the bastard in the eyes with her bladed fingers. Her fingers sunk into the knuckles, the interior of the Hunter’s head ice cold, like a pack of frozen meat. The Hunter screamed and writhed, spraying blood from its eyes and the stump of its arm. Alien roaring filled the air around her now as the other two Hunters closed on her. Still screaming Cam wrenched her hand out of the Hunter’s skull, her fingers dripping with gore. The adrenaline from the kill was already wearing off and she turned too slowly to meet the next Ringhead.

  The Hunter’s foot flew at her head with the speed of a baseball bat and the energy of a freight train. The impact clacked her teeth together so loudly Cam thought she might have shattered her teeth. The coppery taste of blood flooded her mouth. Her neck hinged over from the kick and a new flavor of pain blossomed at the base of her skull. Cam fell to her hands and knees, retching and seeing stars. The ground pitched and spun beneath her. In her periphery she saw more Ringhead feet advancing on her.

  The more the merrier, let’s all join in!

  Five on one. Bad odds by any count. Her heart hammered, each beat pulsing agony through her neck and head. Her left arm felt cold and numb despite the sun blazing down on her. Her breathing felt short, watery. Her vision was tunneling and her legs felt as heavy as lead weights. Cam backed up until she felt the truck behind her. Beyond the Ringheads she saw the encroaching mist from the iceboxes.

  Has it come to this already?

  Behind her, she heard excited yells and shouting. Probably the plantation workers. Maybe they'll send help. It would probably be too late.

  The lead Hunter edged around her. It grabbed the rear bumper of the truck and casually flipped the truck onto its roof.

  Any help they sent would probably wouldn't be enough.

  A gray fog clouded her head. Thinking felt like walking through hip deep mud. She didn't hear the second Hunter step up behind her. She definitely felt its clawed foot on her back, shoving her to the ground, her hands splaying out to catch herself. Cam hit the dirt, her breath exploding out. More bones began moving and tearing as she got up on her elbows, crawling forward.

  Even half-dazed she heard the Hunters on their alien comm channel. Confusion. She was different. Contempt. They enjoyed toying with their prey. Arrogance.

  Maybe she could work that angle. She looked up at them surrounding her. She didn't have many options at this point. Cam looked at all of them, guessing which one was the leader. They had to have an alpha, right? One of them sported larger elbow spikes and an extra bony ridge atop its head. As good a guess as any.

  Cam rolled herself into a ball and tried to look as piteous as possible. It wasn't that hard. Laying down on the humid earth felt so good. She could sleep for days. She made eye contact with the alpha, trying to project an air of defeat and subservience.

  The Ringhead stopped advancing. They all stopped and left a sizeable gap between the nearest two. That way lead to the mist around the iceboxes. I hope this works.

  Cam made pathetic, mewling sounds, dragging herself along the dirt. Roaring sounds came from all the Hunters. Laughter. It sounded vile, hideous, guttural noises like books being ripped in half. But Cam knew they were laughing at her. She writhed, angling herself towards the mist.

  The alpha came over to her, sauntering, cocky. Cam rolled herself tighter, like she was protecting her soft underbelly. She got her feet underneath her, readying for the right moment. C’mon AJ, one last push! The armor around her feet stiffened, the toes lengthening to dig into the dirt for purchase. Her legs coiled like mousetrap springs, waiting on a hair trigger.

  The Ringhead stooped down, reaching for Cam's head.

  Now!

  Cam lunged, flinging her last shred of rage and fear into her legs, catapulting herself up and past the two nearest Hunters. AJ tensed and flexed around her legs, adding to her jump. Cam hit the dirt and pounded her legs, sprinting into the gap. Two sets of Ringhead arms reached for her, missing her by bare inches. One talon whipped past her ear so fast she heard it whistling through the air. One final push and Cam launched herself into a dive, rolling herself into the mist. Opaque whiteness enveloped her.

  It was like flipping a light switch in a dark room. One moment she roasted in sweaty, subtropical heat, the next moment she bathed in a luxurious flow of arctic ice melt. The change in environment punched her in the gut, winding her yet again. She collapsed to her knees, gasping for breath.

  Each lungful of frigid air coated her insides in a rime of frost. Cam breathed deep, feeling her shattered shoulder snapping back into place, the torn and wet places freezing into icy perfection.

  The fog in her mind was gone, replaced by the deadly clarity of an endless snowfield on a cloudless day. Cam stood, feeling her energy return. Ice crackled, forming over her chest and thighs. Bracers covered her arms. A protective cowl molded around her head.

  AJ started throwing data up on her visor. Most of it made no sense but the five red icons made plenty of sense. Cool energy flowed through he
r arms and legs feeling like sparking electricity, making her hairs stand on end.

  The shipmind hummed with a feeling of readiness. Cam looked down at her arms, the thick ice encasing her arms glowed with an interior blue light. She flexed her arms, feeling light and full of potential. Nothing else came from AJ. The red markers on her visor slowly approached the mist.

  “That's it? Screw this. We've had enough D. We're bringing it to them.”

  Cam found AJ and through her reached into the mist. She stretched this new mental muscle, grabbing the mist and shaping it. On her visor the red shapes closed in.

  No time. Something simple. Mist coalesced around her right hand. It gained weight and heft as she shaped it. Gleaming ice extended from her hand, one, two, three, four feet. She was running out of time. Cam compressed the mist, willing it into greater density. She almost dropped it as the weight of it increased. She got her left hand on it, feeling the handle lengthen to accommodate both hands.

  She lifted her creation to her face. Four feet of translucent blue ice shaped in what her geeky brother Ernie would probably call a long sword. Or maybe a bastard sword. Or something like that. The edge glittered in the dim light. Cam smiled grimly, giving the sword a practice two-handed swing. It whistled through the mist, cold and deadly.

  She looked down at her hands. Extending beyond her left hand, the grip flared. She had somehow managed to form the end of the grip into the shape of a wolf’s head. The wolf's eyes sparkled. Tears pricked at Cam's eyes even as fierce determination kindled in her heart.

  “Fuck. Yeah.”

  Her mouth split in a feral grin and she pivoted to face the nearest Hunter. It stood about a meter outside the mist. Energy thrummed along her arms and legs. She hefted the sword and crouched. Ok AJ, time to go to work.

  Cam leapt forward, springing through the mist. She burst from the edge of the mist into the jungle heat, billows of vapor condensing around her. The Ringhead stood before her, its arms half raised. The alien jumped back as Cam burst out of the mist.

  Cam hit the ground and didn't bother slowing down. AJ flexed around her legs, adding power to her spring as she bounded forward. The ice blade carved a wide arc as she whipped it around, streamers of fog trailing off the blade.

  A guttural scream of rage and joy burst from Cam as she closed on the alien. At the apex of her swing her ice blade struck the Hunter, biting deep into the Ringhead’s belly. The alien’s ice armor shattered on contact. The shock of the impact bucked the sword in her hands. AJ tightened her armor in reflex around her wrists. Cam wrenched her arms around, burying the blade deeper and dragging it through the alien’s flesh. Blood sprayed from the wound, showering Cam in green gore.

  The Hunter toppled, a gasping moan coming from its gaping mouth. Its torso hinged back at Cam’s cut, and it fell over, sliced nearly in half. A thin, acrid smoke arose from the wound, the flesh there blackened and bubbling.

  Cam kicked the Hunter’s corpse. It fell to the ground with a sound like dead wood. She turned to face the remaining four Ringheads. More confusion arose from them. She’d knocked those fuckers outside their comfort zone, and Cam liked it this way. She had to make sure none of them made it back. Cam brought the sword up again in both hands and crouched at the ready. The alpha Ringhead stood a few meters from her. She made eye contact and screamed into the alien communication channel.

  If the Ringhead was confused at her reactions before, it was stunned to hear her thoughts. It recoiled and Cam jumped into the gap, her blade singing through the damp air.

  Ok asshole, time to dance!

  Fourteen

  A New Ride

  Cam dropped the smoking sword to the ground. Pockmarks littered the once keen edges, and thin curls of black smoke drifted from the ice. Her arms alternately ached and felt oddly numb from her exertions. Cam’s left shoulder throbbed with every heartbeat. A particularly wicked strike from a desperate Ringhead had shattered her chest plate, and now her shoulder felt loose and broken again. On the bright side, the aliens were in small bits and she was still standing. Sort of.

  Scorched and chopped hunks of Ringhead bodies lay scattered about the clearing, their ice armors either shattered by Cam’s sword, or now evaporating into steam in the blazing sun. All bore the telltale marks of her blade. The last one rested beneath a tree, propped against the trunk. A large vertical stab wound in its chest, where Cam had impaled it to the tree, a last, desperate lunge as her strength had begun failing her.

  Fatigue crept up on her. Alien blood spattered her armor from head to toe. I think I’ve earned a shower and a nap. “What do you say, AJ? Hot shower sound good? Get rid of all this ick?”

  As if on cue, her armor began evaporating, leaving just the helmet behind. As it dissipated, the alien gore went with it, leaving her clean beneath. Cam sagged as the last of it vanished. Some essential energy left her as soon as the armor was gone. She dropped to one knee, her fatigue now nearly crippling. Half crawling, half dragging, Cam made her way slowly to the edge of the icebox mist. She laid on the dirt at the border of the fog, letting it slowly waft over her. It felt like fresh air from a window, in a room filled with choking smoke.

  A few moments like this and Cam felt better. She couldn’t decide if the mist was restorative, or if it was simply the lower temperature. As she debated this her eyes fell on the remains of the pickup truck. The truck rested on the roof, and one of the rear wheels hung at a crazy angle.

  So much for Plan A.

  “Ok AJ, start pulling your weight. If I’m crazy enough to be talking to you, I better be getting some answers. What’s our Plan B?”

  She would just take a knee here for a bit, catch her breath. Cam relaxed and sucked in greedily of the icy mist. The mist continued to flow over her, threatening to lull her to sleep. Cam snapped her eyes open, straining to stay alert. If one ship found her, there might be more of them. She couldn’t afford to lose her focus now.

  AJ clicked on, scanning her surroundings and homing in on the jumpship. The jumpship showed up on her visor as a blurry patch of negative space, hidden behind its cloak. A clicking sound filled her ears. This is new. Cam shook her head, but the clicking grew louder and the target image on her visor glowed with a bright outline.

  Cam nearly smacked herself on the forehead. Forget the fucking truck. I’ve got a freaking alien spaceship here! She sat up, looking in the direction of the jumpship. No other Ringheads had come out during her fight, so it was likely empty. Still, better safe than sorry. She stood and re-entered the mist, feeling the cool power infuse her blood. In addition to her armor she created two swords this time, and secured them to her back.

  She stepped up to the side of the ship and felt for the door. The surface of the ship reacted to her touch, decloaking enough for her to find the access panel. Cam placed her hand on the panel to access the ship systems.

  A shock pulsed up her arm from the palm. Cam cried out and jumped away from the ship. Fuck! An alarm system?! She shook her arm, feeling the tingles dissipate.

  Cam stepped back to the jumpship. As she stood there, AJ encased Cam’s hand in heavier armor. While Cam studied this latest enhancement, a cyan blue light sparked from her armored fingers. Cool.

  Tentative now, Cam slid her sparking palm onto the access panel again. This time, no electric warning. Instead, Cam felt AJ reach into the ship, opening locks and doors.

  Cam’s mind followed until she and AJ stood in the center of the new shipmind. The new shipmind felt similar to AJ, and yet slightly different, like twin siblings. Cam felt the presence of the new shipmind fading as AJ’s presence grew in strength. AJ was writing herself over the existing programming.

  The drop door slid open and Cam entered the jumpship. AJ had the pilot’s seat ready for her. Cam dropped into the seat, exhaustion dragging her down. The drop door sealed, closing out the bright sun and suffocating heat. In the cool dark of the ship Cam finally relaxed, leaning back into the chair. As AJ wrapped the chair around her Cam felt thrum of the
engines firing up.

  Her eyes felt so heavy. Cam barely kept her head up. “Take me home, girl. Best possible speed.”

  Fifteen

  Lockdown

  Sasha

  Sasha couldn’t believe this shit. She looked at the stone-faced Boomie. That was a dead end. In desperation, she tried Trigger. “We’re out of time, Trigger. All we need from you is a ride.”

  He lifted his hands in the air and backed away. “Uh uh. You heard Captain Landau. Base is on lockdown.”

  Sasha wanted to scream in frustration. Fuck it. One squad, one Raven. She knew Ace was on board. She’d round up Whiskey and Victory and it would be Pick Up Sticks redux. The thought of all the folks in Reno getting mangled by vicious Hunters made her sick. She knew her plan sounded flimsy but she figured dismantling the iceboxes might slow down the Ringheads and keep them from getting too comfortable. Lay down some Torch lines, break up their chilly environment and hold them at bay until more help arrived.

  To her surprise, Bull spoke up, his voice grating like a bag of gravel. “I don’t like it. Where is the Colonel? I’m not crazy about someone from the Chair Force calling this play.”

  Ace smacked Bull for the pejorative but without any real heat that Sasha could see.

  Sasha tapped her gauntlet to raise Mack. <>

  Mack didn’t seem concerned with the lockdown order either. <>

  If he was on the move, he’d be here shortly. Hopefully the appearance of the rest of her squad might sway Bull further and they’d be wheels up with two Ravens.

  Sasha hit up Box and Lee. <>

  <>

  Sweet. Sasha scanned the flight prep stations. Nothing good. “Hey Ace, we need to reload the Raven with a boatload of Zooks, V-10s and the sticky ones. Same as before.”