Mike
The dog warned them. He barked once, looking directly at Mike like that creepy little kid in Poltergeist saying, “They’re heeeere!”
He and Kari were in position for about fifteen minutes before Hershey’s warning came. As Headgear promised, when used correctly, the lineman’s harness gave full support and complete use of both his hands.
“Oh, my god,” Kari called softly from the light pole two lanes away. “Mike, there are so many of them!”
Mike looked at Kari’s pale face, and then to where she pointed. He depressed the button on the handheld. “Tangos incoming,” he said calmly. “Looks to be a dozen or more, snipers in position.”
“Roger, that,” the reply came back. Mike shifted his weapon, sighting down the road approaching the bridge. “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes,” he joked to Kari.
“Yeah, ha-ha,” she responded, studying one of the Trois in her own scope. “Jesus, Mike, this is going to be a rout.”
“Only if they look up,” Mike replied grimly.
Kari nodded and took in a deep breath. “All right, motherfuckers,” she muttered. “It’s on like Donkey Kong! Bring it!”
They did.
Kasoniak
Rusty Tillison was sweating, and his daddy always told him to never, ever let them see you sweat. He couldn’t help it, though. One of the goons duct taped his wrist to the table top - like they actually thought they were gonna to do something to his hand! Tillison laughed at the thought, but it was a nervous, girly laugh. He looked up at the officer ... Second Lieutenant S. Darby.
Darby smiled at Tillison and for a moment, Rusty almost forgot Daddy’s advice. There was something in that soldier’s eyes ... something not quite right. Something that made Rusty think he could put a major hurtin’ on him and not even lose a wink of sleep. The only other person Rusty knew with eyes like that was Hank, and Rusty knew what kinds of things Hank was capable of.
Daddy always said the best defense was a good offense, so Rusty went with that.
“What the fuck you think you’re pullin’, you pussy motherfucker?” he spat. “You think you’re scarin’ me? You ain’t doing shit!”
Lieutenant Darby smiled wider. “You know, Mr. Tillison,” he said mildly, with a slight emphasis on the word “mister.” “I have this hammer here in my toolbox, and I have your hand taped right nicely in place. And best of all? There is no one here to tell me I can’t just smash your fingers into ten mangled little meat sausages. No one at all.”
Rusty laughed, the same nervous, girly laugh he hated so much. “You’re bluffin’,” he said with cock-sure bravado. “You can’t do shit to me. I got my constitutional rights.”
Darby nodded at one of the goon soldiers - he had to be a soldier, right? But why wasn’t he in uniform? - and the man roughly grabbed Rusty’s hand. Rusty almost screamed before realizing the soldier had merely taped his thumb and three fingers to the table ... leaving the pinky finger of his right hand untaped. Vulnerable. Exposed. They were fucking with his head. They had to be.
“Last chance, Tillison,” Darby said, his voice amiable.
“Fuck you!” Rusty said, proud of the strength and defiance in his voice. He was just gathering up the saliva in his mouth for a good spit when Darby grinned at him and all the spit suddenly dried up.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Darby said, and then he smashed the hammer down, full force, on Tillison’s exposed pinky finger.
Rusty shrieked with pain, tears bursting from his eyes at the same time he pissed himself. It wasn’t that he was a pussy, he sobbed to himself. Hell, his daddy had done worse - it was just the look in that fuckin’ psycho soldier’s eyes got to him! That was all!
When most of the shrieking died down, Lieutenant Darby smiled at Rusty again. “I’m the new law in town, boy,” he said mildly. “The name’s ‘martial.’ It’s nice to meet ya. Now ... are we gonna talk, son, or am I going to get to do this to every bone in your body?”
They talked.
Hershey
Hershey felt fear coil in his stomach. It didn’t matter he was the top dog or that he was brave – he was also scared. The puppy could feel the Badness as much as he could, and her whimpers and sharp little yips quieted as she huddled as far into the protection of the sidecar well as she could get, nervously chewing the stuffed panda bear. Hershey considered moving down into the well with her, but there just wasn’t enough room. So, he waited, trembling frantically.
A high-pitched whine the humans couldn’t hear sounded and the weapons the Badness carried were discharged. A human near the truck screamed in pain, and Hershey’s human yelled something to Kari. Both of their thunder sticks made that horrible loud noise. The Badness kept pushing through, even though several of them fell to Mike or Kari’s shots. The Badness pushed past Kari and Mike, and were beginning to attack the four other humans near the truck.
Hershey hesitated, uncertainly. They weren’t his humans; his human specifically told him to “stay!” But Hershey’s instinct and heart screamed to him all humans were his when it came down to it. If it was between a human or the Badness, the human won his loyalty every time.
With a quick jump, Hershey was out of the sidecar and bounding out onto the bridge. He passed under the light poles where Mike and Kari were playing and ran toward the Badness that was aiming its weapon again. He leapt and tackled the thing, feeling a satisfying crunch as his strong jaws and snarly teeth connected, biting deep. The creature bellowed in rage, the sound so loud and high-pitched dogs for miles around would hear it. Hershey ignored that creature and turned to the next. He knew he had to take two legs out to hamstring the monsters as he had done to his first kill, but there simply wasn’t time. If he could cripple one leg, he was going to have to settle for that. He could come back for the kill, if there was time.
His task was made especially difficult because Mike and Kari kept firing their loud bang sticks, and now the men in the truck were firing too, and everyone was yelling. The Badness yelled, too, but in tones only Hershey, and probably the puppy, could hear. It was utter pandemonium … and somewhere in the chaos, Hershey realized he was loving it! A big old doggy grin showed on his face as he snarled and snapped and dodged, his teeth his only weapon, his fast legs his only defense. Shot after shot rang out until …
Until they didn’t anymore.
Hershey looked around in confusion. The Badness were all down on the ground, many of them with bitten or shattered legs, all of them with gaping holes in the flat space between their antennae. It was over? Hershey almost felt disappointed as the adrenaline surge began to abate.
One of the Badness moved slightly, and Hershey sprang at him, his hackles raised, the growl low in his throat. He didn’t need to do anything else – the Badness was already dying, and, seeing Hershey’s snarly teeth, he hurried it up.
There was a long moment of silence, and then the humans went insane! They laughed and whooped and slapped each other on the back while Mike and Kari scrambled down from the light poles, carrying on in the same silly way. Hershey remembered he was supposed to be babysitting and tried to slink off back to the sidecar, but one of the humans grabbed him, shaking him a bit.
“This dog was fucking awesome!” the man gushed, holding Hershey in a hug that squeezed the breath out of him. If his voice was making threatening sounds instead of happy sounds, Hershey would have been scared. The man finally released him though, and Hershey sneezed his disapproval several times. “He was hamstringing those sons-a-bitches – showed us exactly where to shoot to help him out!”
Mike and Kari came over, both grinning broadly, their eyes bright with the fear and adrenaline that poured from their skin, letting Hershey know he was not the only one who was both afraid and excited. That knowledge calmed him immediately, and he licked both Mike and Kari in happiness. They both hugged him, and he wriggled appreciatively.
“He’s a good dog,” Mike said proudly, and Hershey beamed. He was a good dog!
“He saved my ass, no question,” another one of the men said. A man wrapped a tourniquet around the soldier’s upper arm, but the smell of blood was still thick. “That Trois was coming right at me, and he was locked and loaded. Your dog leapt up out of nowhere, crashed right into him, and took him down.”
There was more excited chatter. Humans could talk and talk and talk. Hershey lost interest when he stopped hearing his name and settled down for a nap, supposing the puppy would just have to watch out for herself for a few more minutes. It wasn’t a long nap. The men all got back into their truck and headed out onto the long road that went over the water. Hershey sighed as he, Mike, and Kari walked back to the sidecar. He dreaded going over that long bridge!
To his great pleasure, they didn’t. Kari picked up the whiny puppy and cuddled and cooed to her as if she had shown snarly teeth and been a hero!! Hershey swallowed the indignity of it sourly. His mood lifted, though, when the four of them, Kari still carrying the pup, walked down to the beach, toward all the delicious smells! Hershey’s former human, Clare, took him to play in the ocean before. She threw a little yellow ball into the water, and Hershey jumped in to bring it back to her, again and again. It had been a wonderful day - almost as good as Sidecar Day! The beach was amazing and humans were wonderful!
The water was just as icy cold as Hershey knew it would be, but he didn’t care. He loved to play in it, even though it stung his right front paw something awful! Mike took his clothes off and came out to his knees, quickly scooping handfuls of water onto Hershey to clean off the blood and gore and doing the same to get the blood, sweat, and filth off of his own body. He didn’t come all the way in, and he didn’t play with Hershey, which was disappointing. Apparently the water was too cold for someone without fur.
Kari refused to come in at all, and she shrieked in protest when Hershey shook himself hard, splashing cold water all over her. She danced around, though, so she must have liked it. Hershey shook again, feeling much better, and settled down to lick his paw. The sun was high overhead, and after the hard fight with the Badness and his invigorating swim, he was hungry!
They all ate on the beach, but close to the roadway and the sidecar, more in grass than sand. Hershey liked puppy kibble even better than adult kibble, and he ate his quickly. He would happily have finished off what the annoying little yippyface left in her bowl, too, but Kari put that carefully back into the bag. She and Mike ate something Mike called ‘meals rejected by Ethiopians.’ Hershey didn’t know what an Ethiopian was or why they would reject the mouth-watering food, but he happily licked the beef stroganoff sauce off the brown plastic pouches when Mike and Kari were finished. They didn’t seemed to enjoy their food very much, but he thought it was delicious!
By the time they were ready to go, Hershey was utterly exhausted. Kari settled the puppy into its nest on the floorboard of the sidecar, and then Mike patted the seat for Hershey to jump in. Before Mike even started the engine, Hershey was deeply, soundly asleep.
Kasoniak
Lieutenant Darby placed the report onto Col. Kasoniak's desk and stepped back a pace, returning to a rigid attention. Kasoniak picked up the two page confession and spent several minutes reading it carefully before returning it, just as carefully, to his desk. He steepled his fingers and looked at Darby over the tops of them.
“Obtained under duress?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Darby replied calmly.
Kasoniak nodded. “Understood, Lieutenant. Thank you for your diligent work.” Kasoniak thought for a long moment, and then nodded, more to himself than the lieutenant. “I want him handcuffed to the gallows under MP guard,” he instructed. “On March 19th, he’s to be hanged at 0900. It will be a public execution, and I will be officiating. Distribute informational fliers to that effect, please, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir,” Darby replied, saluting sharply before turning to leave the colonel's office.
Mike
The picnic on the beach was a nice way to pass the time until they got radio confirmation the ten-ton made it to the Eastern Shore. It took about forty minutes, which was decent time, all things considered. While Hershey swam, Mike allowed the events of the past hour to play and replay in his mind. He, Kari, Hershey, and five resistance soldiers – two of them civilians – took down eleven Trois! Entire squads had fallen to one or two of the aliens in the past, but that would never happen again.
The Trois had exploitable weaknesses: the soft spot between their antennae, which the Resistance already knew about; and the space on each lower appendage Hershey found, the area just below what would be a knee joint, if the creatures had knees. Or joints. In any case, it was a wedge in their otherwise impervious armor. Hershey found it by instinct, but once the soldiers saw where he was biting, they followed the dog’s lead. They aimed for the same area, crippling or dropping several of the Trois before finishing them off. Of course, for Mike, perched twenty feet above the killing field, it was like shooting fish in a barrel or deer from a tree stand. It was almost too easy.
Mike had lost his taste for using his bow, even though he still cherished the weapon as an object of beauty and a gift from his parents. He had put the bow and quiver of arrows away shortly after coming to NFK, and had instead picked up the carbine, spending hours practicing on the range. He quickly ranked as a sharpshooter and was working hard to gain his expert quals. The hours of practice served him well today; he knew four of the eleven kills were his, and he was certain one was Kari’s. Thanks to the new radio and its mirror in Major Hardin’s custody, he’d been able to pass the invaluable information to the Virginia resistance forces. They would pass it down the line until everyone in the USRF knew how to take down the Trois. If only the Feeders had such an exploitable weakness!
Mike and Kari mounted up. Before lowering his visor, Mike held up a little black box with an antenna sticking out from it. “You wanna do the honors?” he asked Kari.
She grinned happily and took the box from his hand. She pressed the button. Three seconds later, a large section of the bridge exploded in a hail of noise and concrete chunks. Mike and Kari whooped in exultation as they revved up their bikes and started the long ride back to Kentucky. It was close to 1400, so Mike calculated they could make it to Charlottesville before having to stop for the night. Of course, that was assuming the Razers let them slip through Richmond.
Kasoniak
The rumors spread through NFK like a flame thrower through cords of butter. The Trois were vulnerable. Iron Mike and Killer Kasoniak killed twenty of them single-handedly. Kari heroically saved a lost boy. Worldwide communications were back up. Google was alive and well, and the internet would be back up soon. They were winning the war at last!
Kasoniak shook his head as he walked past a small group of people who were talking excitedly. Well, morale was certainly up, at least. He couldn’t complain on that account.
“Report, Major Jeffries,” Kasoniak asked, returning the major’s salute.
“We have thirty-two volunteers, Colonel,” Jeffries smiled broadly. “Instead of being short, we’re going to have to run a lottery to see who gets to go!”
Kasoniak shook his head, a mixture of exasperation and sadness in his expression. “Damn fools,” he muttered. “None of this is infallible. This enemy is still as dangerous as a nest of vipers and when they come up with countermeasures – and they will – more of our people will die.”
Jeffries nodded, a bit more soberly. “Yes, Colonel. With all due respect, though, sir … we’ve been on the receiving end for so long, not able to do a damned thing but watch good people die. Now, we know the enemy has weaknesses too, sir. Our boys just want to give some back.”
Kasoniak nodded tiredly. He’d seen it before. Hell, he had been one of those eager young soldiers once, so gung-ho it gave him a headache to even think about it. He understood, more than he wanted to.
“I want two squads with a backup flame thrower in each group. Keep those soldiers tight, Major. This isn’t
a hunting trip. We are very much at war.”
Jeffries saluted sharply before leaving to carry out the order. Kasoniak sighed. When the hell had he gotten so damned old?
March 18.
Hershey
Hershey had never slept in a hotel room, and he decided he enjoyed it very much. Mike and Kari slept together in one bed, wrestling half the night, and that left Hershey and Yippyface to share the other big bed. He had no idea what the humans had named Yippyface, but he decided that was his name for her. It was perfectly apt. Hershey tried twice to cuddle with the humans, but neither of them seemed up for the idea, preferring to wrestle with each other instead. So, with a slightly aggrieved sigh, he settled for second best. Once Yippyface settled down, though, she was warm and snuggly enough. Better than a cat, in any case.
The day before, they rode until the moon was high overhead, their speed decreasing exponentially with the daylight. It was one of the best days Hershey could remember, second only to the day at the beach ... and maybe the day he and Clare had played the dog food game. The motorcycle continued to be the most exciting thing Hershey knew, and he continued to love it, quivering with excitement every time Mike or Kari reached for their helmets. Every time they stopped to let Yippyface or Kari go piddle (it was always one or the other of them), Hershey leapt joyfully back into the sidecar when the business had been done.
They awoke at dawn, and the first thing Yippyface did (after falling off the bed and rolling back onto her feet) was piddle on the floor. Hershey cringed; he remembered his first boy, and how angry the mother had gotten when he had done that on her carpet as a puppy. Dogs were never, ever supposed to piddle inside! Mike and Kari were wonderful, though. Mike laughed as Kari used one of the hotel towels to clean the mess up, dropping the towel into the bathtub when she was done.
Iron Mike Page 23
