*
Several hours later, nearing his target city, designated City 72 by the Keulfyd, Az saw a line of lights. He lined up the plane and touched down a little roughly as the distance to the ground was hard to gauge. As he passed the lights, they went out. The Cats were being careful. He shut the plane down and got out into the moonlight. He immediately noticed a large number of Cats. He moved over to Mathew who was breathing a sigh of relief as his count reached 20 or so. Not nearly as many as he’d hoped for but a lot better than nothing. Things were looking better.
“Did you know they’d be here?” asked Az.
“The Priskya said they might be. Many of the Alien Races we are fighting have killed a great number of them for sport. These are mostly young males. They want revenge. The Priskya and Cats also worried that there would still be too many Aliens for us to handle. The deal was, if they turned up, they stipulated they are to be treated as smart animals not sapients. Everyone knows.
It was a brisk hour and a half walk to where the perimeter was. Another reason Alan could not have come. The adults had taken turns carrying the smaller children. They would need to be fresh and not tired. Az checked out the scanners and guided little Bea in. She passed the scanner safely and then pulled the blow guns through, one at a time. Her ammunition was tossed in after her, in small bundles so as not to be enough metal to tip off the scanners. He sighed in relief. He had been afraid the Keulfyd would beef up security. He did not know they assumed the threat was from within. He did not know that they would have surrendered had he asked nicely. He did not know they would get the shock of their lives to find out the attack was external.
Once Bea was settled, Tasha snuck in. But then she paused and came back. She went back to Mathew. After a few seconds, Mathew beckoned to Az. He went over. Mathew whispered,
“Tasha says one of the scanners isn’t on. Can you check?”
Az cautiously went over. Of the three scanners he could see, one was definitely off. Sloppy. He smiled. This was helpful. Tasha openly took her blow guns and hid. Mathew looked around for the smallest people. He gestured a few more in, speaking softly to each. He added the blue balls to their ammunition.
Everyone settled down to wait. In the other three cities, the progress was the same. All ready, all quiet. Everyone well hidden inside their hides or camouflage suits. Just as well this planet had gardens and plants! Most gardens were trees and shrubs.
The first stragglers appeared well before sunrise. All the blow gunners went to work. Many of the Aliens were Yakkidimux as they had been assigned to work today, because they were well. They didn’t feel well. Most were jumpy and downright frightened. They knew they hadn’t done this. They were waiting to get sick. Some were imagining sickness where it didn’t yet exist. They were very unhappy. And now they were getting bitten by bloody insects.
Around the perimeter of the scanners, most of the adults were out of range. But some, like Ludmilla, were close enough and very accurate. As dawn came, the city’s inhabitants started to move about and further afield. By daylight, in all the cities, the adults were getting as many as the children.
Alien Alliance Page 44
