Defilade

by Chris Lowry

  DEFILADE

  Invasion Earth Series

  Book 7

  By

  Chris Lowry

  Copyright 2018

  Grand Ozarks Media

  All rights reserved

  DEFILADE

  CHAPTER ONE

  "Fuck me," Lt squinted through the scorched camera monitor at the landscape beyond the lander.

  Smoke and dust drifted up in a fog that dissipated over the screen in twirling wisps that obscured the view.

  "Any landing you can walk away from," Warbucks groaned in the seat next to him.

  "I thought you said you could fly this fucking thing."

  She unstrapped from the seat and stumbled up, holding onto the wall for balance as her legs adjusted.

  "That wasn't landing," she said. "That was falling."

  "Fall better next time," Lt unstrapped and stood next to her. "You all right?"

  "Leg's are weak," she said as she tried to take a step and almost fell. She caught herself before hitting the floor and stood shaking.

  "Space legs," Lt said. "You're fucking weak."

  "Give me a minute and I can still kick your ass," she said.

  "Those were my balls you kicked, not my ass," he reminded her.

  He went to the hatch and tried to force it open, but the doorway to the outside was stuck.

  "What happened anyway?" he grunted as he gripped the lever and pulled.

  "Licks tried to shoot us down."

  "Did we get hit?"

  The hatch cranked open an inch, then two. A small stream of dirt cascaded through the opening, a tiny patch of blue sky visible near the top.

  "Not directly," she said.

  "Indirectly?"

  "We spiraled out of control. I don't know how far off target we are."

  "Can't get out this way."

  He stepped back from the hatch and gave her a questioning look.

  “You got any ideas locked in that noggin up there?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she grimaced as she reached up and hooked her arm through the strap on the pilot’s seat, wrapping it twice. “Cover your ears.”

  Annie reached out and punched a button on the console.

  CHAPTER TWO

  He tried not to scream, especially when the laser beams started cutting across the sky trying to shoot them down for the second time that morning.

  Lt had been skydiving a couple of times and fucking hated it.

  He wasn’t afraid of heights. That wasn’t it. He wasn’t even afraid of falling. There was a difference between fear and just plain not enjoying something.

  Like being shot at while they dangled from an open cockpit suspended on a parachute floating three hundred feet over the ground.

  Not to mention Warbucks didn’t tell him to strap in.

  He locked and loaded a litany of choice words and names to blast her with as soon as they landed. Right then, he wanted to concentrate on the ground that was coming up fast.

  He braced for impact, and then remembered his training. Land loose and roll.

  He did just that and sent up a prayer that the armor absorbed almost all of the fall.

  He rolled up to his feet and shook mud and grime from the faceplate of his helmet.

  “You worthless, spineless-,” he sputtered to a stop.

  She had warned him to cover his ears, not grab on, and that was why he was pissed.

  She was caught in the web of her straps, hanging upside down, and either dead or passed out.

  It didn’t matter to him at the moment, which it was. She couldn’t hear his cursing, so he decided to wait.

  He marched over to the upside down cockpit and searched for his fallen blaster.

  The Licks had been taking pot shots at them on the way down, and they had to see where they landed, or at least had a general idea of the vicinity.

  Licks were fucking stupid, but not dumb enough that they wouldn’t come to investigate.

  Lt moved to hide behind a tree and wait.

  Annie could stay where she was strapped, bait staked out to the crash, ready to draw the Lick’s in.

  He grinned inside his helmet. Time to get back to business.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Lt listened for the sound of the hovercraft floating above the trees. It was hard to hear at first.

  Their landing had set a couple of trees on fire, caught in the backburn of the rear mounted plasma rockets that controlled their descent.

  Though control was a strong word for what actually happened.

  "Here they come," he whispered to himself.

  He was the only one around to hear it.

  The radios weren't working again. He'd tried it after they landed. Crashed, he corrected and settled the blaster against the edge of the tree.

  Slivers of bark rained down on the hard packed ground, peppering the green moss with gray flakes.

  The sound of the hovercraft grew slowly as it approached, like distant freeway noise picking up as daylight turned a commute into a free for all.

  He saw the glint of sunshine off the carbon alloy hull, dulled by the grime of smog as it drifted over the trees and dropped Lick soldiers into the clearing to explore the wreckage.

  Six of them. Taller than a man. Covered in black or silver jumpsuits and carrying lasers.

  The only thing he knew that could harm his armor. He'd have to be careful.

  The color meant rank, but since he hadn't spied much on the alien invaders, he didn't know which was more important. But size seemed to matter to the Lizard looking men.

  The big guys were the ones they followed.

  He lined up his sights on the largest one in silver and sent a blast through its head. It popped with a smoky hiss, a noise that made the others turn and stare.

  It only bought a second's hesitation, just a fraction of time. It was enough.

  He dropped two more before they pinpointed his position. He got another as they sent the first bolt into the bole next to his head.

  Lt ducked back, hiding the bulk of his armor behind the trunk. The hovercraft whizzed out of the clearing and circled back on his position.

  He raised his blaster and sent three lancets of plasma blasts into the shape steering it.

  A seven foot reptile body flopped over the side of the craft and smacked into the ground with a wet thud.

  The hovercraft spun upside down and slammed into one of the two Lick soldier's left, splatting him in a splurt of goo and gore that squirted across the clearing and covered the last Lick standing in black ichor.

  Lt rolled on his stomach from behind the tree, aimed and sent a blast into center mass.

  It plopped backwards in a sprawl. Lt watched the leg twitch in a death throe, then roamed the perimeter.

  "Not bad," he said to himself as he got up and checked again.

  It would have been cleaner with a second or third gun. And the element of surprise helped.

  Maybe like a crash, any ambush you could walk away from should be considered a success, he thought.

  Then he went to check on Warbucks.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  "Fuck."

  "I agree."

  He stared at her from the corner of his eye as he surveyed the smashed hovercraft wrapped around the bent trunk of a yellow pine.

  "Do you even know what the hell you're agreeing with?" he asked.

  She shook her head.

  "I could tell by your look it was serious, though."

  "Yeah it is," he huffed. "I ain't looking forward to walking all the way to where we need to go. It's not such a problem for me, cause I got a shit ton of experience humping it all over this back country. I am a little concerned about you though."

  She jutted out her chin, channeling all the defiance she could muster after having reacted the w
ay she did when the Lick patrol showed up.

  "I can manage," she said.

  "You sure?" Lt turned to her.

  He had a half grin on his face and squinted toward her with a curious glance.

  "This is the first time you been on earth in what? Three years?"

  "Longer."

  "Five?"

  She shook her head again.

  "I shipped out a decade ago."

  "Ten years? Shit, how old are you?"

  "I was young when I joined," Annie stuck her chin out further, her lips pouted in a grimace.

  "I ain't questioning your decisions," said Lt. "Hell, I knew you had a couple years’ experience on me. But you're up in the ranks on your ship, right? That takes time."

  "I earned it," she said. "On Mars."

  "Alright then," Lt said. "You got space legs, but not earth legs. You're kinda like a sailor off the boat for the first time in forever and we got a long way to go."

  "And a short time to get there."

  "Now you know how serious I am about the situation we're in. I could carry you some ways, but I don’t want to do it."

  "You won't have to do it."

  "You sure?"

  She stretched up on her toes to show him how strong her calves were and tried to hide the shimmy in her muscles the effort cost her.

  "Think of it as making me stronger," she said.

  "If it don't kill you."

  He took one last look at the destroyed hovercraft, then at the five alien bodies arrayed and splayed on the forest floor.

  "We ought to cut off their heads?"

  "Gross," she said. "Why?"

  "I want to let those fuckers know one thing loud and clear," Lt grinned. "I'm back."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  "What is this place?" Annie asked.

  "It used to be called a Church," Lt said out of the corner of his mouth. His eyes were locked on the brick building in the clearing below the ridge.

  "I know it's a Church," she said. "That's what hit used to be. I meant what is it now?"

  Lt thought she had the right of it. It was once a Church, a big brick building with four white columns across the front facade, gone gray now from soot and pollen and anything else that filled the air.

  There was a second metal building, a gym maybe, once upon a time, separated by the asphalt parking lot.

  He was most impressed with the yard.

  Not yard, he thought, correcting himself. Crops. The grass around the two buildings had been given over to rows, turned into crops. He couldn't tell what they were from this distance. They were green though, which meant whatever they were growing was healthy.

  He watched the front door of the Church building open and a man came out, slow and steady, like he was creeping into the sunlight for the first time in forever. But his head was on a swivel, searching the woods, searching the surroundings and Lt bit back an urge to duck into the shadow of the tree next to him.

  The armor wouldn't reflect the light, he thought. The shell was an effective camouflage. He tilted his head to one side, checking on Annie. Her black grungy flight suit would keep her hidden as well.

  "What is he looking for?" she asked.

  Her voice was pitched low, as if they could be heard across the two hundred meter distance.

  "Us," said Lt. "Or men like us. And the Licks."

  "Not many men like me," said Annie.

  "Women?"

  "Space men."

  He chuckled and let his eyes scan the clearing, his mind keyed for danger.

  But another part of him was surprised to find just how much he liked having her with him.

  She was quick with her humor, and it seemed to fit with the kind of things he found funny or hit the far side of the absurd spectrum.

  Whatever it was, he enjoyed it in a way he hadn't enjoyed the company of anyone in almost three years.

  They watched the man walk to the door of the metal building.

  He knocked against it with the heel of his fist three times, then twice more.

  It opened, and people began to stream out.

  Haggard looking men dressed in faded worn clothes. And women that outnumbered them by almost double, each wearing a mish mash of garments.

  Like they had grabbed everything in an abandoned department store, threw it on the floor and grabbed what they could.

  No sense of fashion, but a hell of a lot of practicality. Worn as well, clothes used for work, and living, warmth and cover.

  The children that followed were much the same, though there were only a handful.

  "Twenty seven," Annie said next to him.

  "Nah, Warbucks I count round seven."

  She crunched up her eyebrows, the wrinkles on her forehead popping in confusion.

  "I know it's tough for you to count that high with your shoes on," she said. "But there are twenty seven people down there."

  "Kids," I explained. "I was counting kids."

  "I counted them too."

  "Only kids."

  She nodded, but like she was just going to let him have it, not that she was conceding an argument. Like she was giving him a graceful way out.

  "Why did he knock like that?" she asked. "And why wasn't he in there with them?"

  One of the little kids darted to the door of the Church, opened it up and yelled into the darkness.

  He stood back as five more children ran to join them in the parking lot, and eight women issued forth from the interior of the brick building.

  "We got us a bandit problem around here," Lt explained. "Damn fuckers are as bad as Licks. Worse in some cases."

  "Worse than Licks?"

  "Collaborators," said Lt.

  She grunted, sharing his attitude toward people who worked with the alien invaders to betray humans.

  "Should we go around?"

  Lt nodded.

  "They look pretty at peace down there. If we showed up, they might give us dinner and a place to clean up. I'd be obligated to press them to join the resistance."

  "Obligated how? Just asking."

  "My mission, before I took me a trip up into outer space and blowed up the Lick High Command ship," he nudged her elbow.

  "I think you've mentioned it."

  "Don't worry Warbucks, I'll keep reminding you. My mission was to get all the survivors on the same page. We were mounting a huge resistance to get rid of those lizard faced sons of bitches and get them off the planet."

  "You were in charge of a resistance?"

  "Nah. I was just asking folks to join up. See, I've got a bit of a reputation down here."

  "I can't tell if you're puffing up your chest in that armor," she said.

  "You bet your ass I am," he said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  They walked for days that felt like years.

  Annie was from the East coast of the US, a place Lt told her no longer existed, had not existed since the first wave of the invasion.

  "Blew it off the map," he said in an off handed sort of way then grit his teeth and shut up as she let silent tears trickle down her cheeks.

  She knew she might never get back to earth, but there had been comfort in thinking that home was still there.

  Family, though spread out and sparse, was there. Like the sun, or the blue marble floating in space, home should always be there.

  But it wasn't, and Lt sensed that he had been insensitive in the remark.

  Even if it was true.

  The sun she called reliable soon pinked her skin to a purplish shade on the scale and Lt moved them under the shade of trees just off the road they were traversing.

  The going was slower here, footing more treacherous, so they made poor time.

  Add to that her weak muscles, and shortness of breath and she was quite glad when he called a halt near a concrete bridge spanning a shallow creek.