by Jon S. Lewis
“Did anyone go near it?” she asked, then waited for a response. “Good. Tell them not to touch it. Tell them to . . . just get out of there.”
“Touch what?” Colt said over the static.
“We’re leaving now.” Danielle started to walk away, tightening the strap that held her sniper rifle over her shoulder.
“Danielle!”
“Commander Webb said that someone spotted a Class 2 Thule fighter a couple miles from here, and he wants us to investigate.”
“What about the rest of the squad?”
“They’re busy.”
: :
CHAPTER 2 : :
Colt sped through the streets in a Humvee that was built for rough terrain, not for a winding obstacle course of potholes, crumpled cars, and mounds of debris.
Thud. Thud. He barreled over an aluminum ladder, and his brain bounced against his skull.
“Watch out!” Danielle yelled.
Colt didn’t see the cast-iron tub until it was too late. He clenched his jaw and cranked the steering wheel to the right. Tires screeched, and the engine roared as the front bumper clipped an upright piano, erupting in an explosion of wooden panels and ivory keys. He knew he should slow down, but he couldn’t. Not if there was a chance that Thule were lurking nearby.
“Display GPS,” he said, and a map appeared in the heads-up display inside his visor. “Show me the shortest route to the crash site.”
The word CALCULATING flashed on the screen three times before a green line appeared, connecting two dots. “Turn right onto Larpin Lane in one hundred feet,” an automated voice said.
“Wait, what?” Danielle said. “There’s nowhere to turn.”
“Why would the GPS lie?”
“Maybe because it doesn’t know the streets are buried under a foot of debris.”
“Turn right,” the GPS repeated.
Colt jerked the steering wheel, and the Humvee shook as it rolled up a mound of plywood, beams, and Sheetrock. Crack! Something beneath them broke, and the tires spun until they found traction on what was left of a sofa.
“See, it was right,” Colt said as the Humvee shot down a street that had been partially cleared by a bulldozer.
“Congratulations.”
There was a blur of motion as a motorcycle with a sidecar cut in front of them. “What a jerk!” Danielle cried out.
“Me or him?” Colt barely had time to react, but he managed to cut the wheel hard to the left. Their Humvee shot over a curb and into a front yard.
“Colt! Tell me you see that!”
They were speeding toward a chimney that stood in a field of ash. It was all that remained of what had been a massive house, and they were on a crash course.
Colt slammed on the brakes, and the wheels locked up. Tires cut through wet grass, digging through the mud as he spun the steering wheel to the right. Momentum turned the Humvee sideways, and time seemed to slow as the chimney loomed in front of them.
Twenty feet. Ten feet. Five.
Metal crumpled as the driver’s-side door slammed into the chimney. Colt felt the impact roll up his spine and into his shoulders. His head snapped to the left and then the right as bricks fell on the roof in rapid succession. One caught the windshield and left a jagged crack before it fell to the ground.
Colt hit the gas and the Humvee shot forward, rolling over a birdbath and then jumping back onto the street. From the corner of his eye he could see Danielle looking at him, and even though her face was hidden behind the helmet, he could imagine the fire in her eyes.
“Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “But—”
“But what? You almost got us killed!”
“I know. It’s just that . . .” Colt hesitated, trying to think of a good excuse. It didn’t matter that he was only sixteen or that it had only been six months since he earned his driver’s license. Not when the world needed heroes to rise above themselves.
: :
CHAPTER 3 : :
The Thule were killing machines that looked like walking lizards with six arms, and their hooked teeth and clawed fingers were designed to rend flesh from bone.
Until recently most of the world thought they were little more than characters from a comic book. In the past, some, like President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had known the truth. He’d kept their existence a secret, fearing that if people knew Hitler had joined forces with a race of shape-shifting aliens it would cause mass hysteria at a time when Americans needed stability.
He’d also hidden the existence of Project Chrysalis, a top-secret program he developed where infants were inoculated with Thule blood in an attempt to create a breed of super soldiers who could defend the United States against extraterrestrial threats. Seventy years and billions of dollars later, the project was on the verge of cancellation—until the first successful test case in recorded history was a boy from San Diego named Colt McAlister. The military finally had its savior.
“That’s it!” Danielle said as she pointed at a four-story brick building surrounded by trees and rolling hills.
As they entered the parking lot they could see the tail end of the Thule fighter sticking out from the rooftop. Since it was nearly impossible for humans to speak the alien language, they had taken to classifying Thule ships using reptilian names. This particular fighter was called a Taipan, named for the most venomous snake on the planet.
“How long has it been here?” Colt asked, wondering why no one had spotted it in the initial sweep.
“I know as much as you do.” Danielle opened her door, grabbed a camera out of her duffel bag, and walked toward the building.
“Wait a minute. What are you doing?” Colt said.
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Trying to get yourself killed.” He shouldered his assault rifle and grabbed Danielle’s sniper rifle. “You don’t go into a hot zone without your weapon.”
“So now you’re worried about protocol?”
“I’m worried about one of the Thule ripping you in half.”
“Right, because this place is infested. Remind me again, how many Thule have we seen over the last three days? Because I’m pretty sure the number is zero.”
“That doesn’t mean they aren’t here.”
“Fine, I’ll prove it.” She picked up a brick, bounced it in her palm, and threw it at the window.
“Have you lost your mind?”
Danielle shook her head. “Since none of them are rushing out to rip my head off, I’d say we’re fine.”
Colt could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand on end as wind whipped across the parking lot, causing a metal handicap parking sign to shake. A newspaper fluttered. Branches creaked in nearby trees, threatening to snap. But there was no sign of the Thule. Yet.
Over the last two weeks, when Colt wasn’t battling replicas of Thule inside a hologram chamber, he was studying them in a classroom. He learned about their fractured political structure and how their government had splintered into five warring factions, each led by a warlord who sought supremacy over the others. He knew that four of the factions had united in the fight against humanity, and more importantly, he knew that each Thule had a jaw that was strong enough to bite Danielle in half if it got hold of her.
“Are you coming or what?” she asked. But before he could respond, Danielle walked into the lobby of the apartment building with her camera at the ready instead of her gun.
: :
CHAPTER 4 : :
Colt kept his finger on the trigger as the flashlights mounted to his helmet flared to life. The lobby was a shambles: overturned desks, shattered chairs, a collapsed wall revealing an empty swimming pool wreathed by an iron fence out back.
He took one step and then another as a gust of wind sent dead leaves dancing across the hardwood floor. Something moved in the shadows, and his muscles tensed. “Danielle . . . is that you?” he said into his comlink. “Can you hear me?”
“Sorry, I’m getting a lot of static.”
“You’re breaking up.”
“Danielle.”
“See you on the roof.”
The elevator was out of commission, so Colt rushed up the stairwell, hoping to catch her before she ran headlong into a nest of Thule. It was times like this when he most missed Oz Romero, and not because his friend could bench-press four hundred pounds or hit a bull’s-eye with a sniper rifle from three-quarters of a mile away.
Colt missed Oz’s confidence, his quirky humor, and the way he always smiled—even when it felt like the world was crashing down around them. He understood why Abigail Thorne, the new superintendent of the academy, had expelled Oz when she took over, even after it looked like Oz would be able to stay, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. Oz wasn’t like his dad, the former director of CHAOS who had hired a Thule assassin to kill a list of US government officials—along with Colt, who he thought had wanted to remove him from his post.
Oz had testified that he didn’t have anything to do with the plot, and he not only passed a series of lie detector tests to prove it, he let them take a recording of his memories. They didn’t find one shred of evidence; still, Superintendent Thorne said she couldn’t risk keeping him even though Colt and more than a dozen instructors had testified on his behalf.
Grandpa even spoke to the man who had assumed control of CHAOS. Ezekiel Watson was not only the Director of the Department of Alien Affairs but also an old friend. It didn’t matter. Their public relations team thought that keeping Oz around would mean bad publicity at a time when the American people needed to know that they could trust their government to protect them.
Thinking about it made Colt angry. I can’t go there, not now, he thought. Look. Listen. Evaluate. Do it all again and then move. He pressed forward but stopped when he heard something heavy shuffle across the floor above him.
“Colt, can you hear me?”
“Where are you?”
“I can see the ship but—” Her voice cut out.
Wood groaned as something big made its way up the stairs from behind. I knew it, Colt thought. We walked right into a trap. He turned off the flashlights as he stepped around the corner and stood with his back against the wall.
The dull thud of footsteps grew closer, and he tried to control his breathing—in through the mouth, out through the nose. He pictured the nerve clusters on a Thule. The throat. Ears. Groin. Armpits. If those didn’t work, there were always the eyes.
His body tensed. The creature was close enough that he could hear it breathing. It’s now or never. He spun around and jabbed at its throat with his rifle, but it deflected the blow. Colt followed up with a knee to the midsection, but it slipped to the side and knocked the rifle from his hands.
“Take it easy, McAlister.”
“Oz?” The person standing there looked like his friend, but something was off. Thule were shapeshifters, which meant that they could take any human form. This Oz was too thin, and his cheeks were too gaunt.
“Yeah, it’s me.” He held up his arms in a show of surrender, but it wasn’t enough.
Colt drew the .45-caliber handgun from his holster and took aim.
“What are you doing?” Oz asked.
“Prove it.”
“What, you think I’m one of them?”
“You have five seconds.”
“Come on, you can’t be—”
“Four . . . three . . .”
“Okay. I met you at Chandler High . . . you stink at video games . . . you’re in love with Lily Westcott . . . and you keep your dad’s Phantom Flyer ring in your sock drawer. You happy?”
“What’s my favorite Phantom Flyer issue?”
Oz rolled his eyes. “You tell people it’s #11 because that’s what it should be, but it’s really #97—the first one your dad gave you.”
“I almost shot you,” Colt said, lowering the gun. “What are you doing here?”
Oz shrugged. “Somebody has to watch your back. Anyway, where’s Danielle?”
“Taking pictures of the wreck.”
“By herself?” Oz started up the last flight of stairs, but Colt grabbed him by the arm.
“Listen, about everything that happened—”
“Forget it,” Oz said, cutting him off. “You didn’t have anything to do with it. Besides, they didn’t have a choice.”
Someone screamed.
“Danielle!”
Oz grabbed Colt’s assault rifle and charged up the stairs with Colt on his heels. They burst through the door and ran down the hall toward the wreck, but stopped when they saw Danielle in the clutches of a Thule.
Should I spare her life or dine on her liver?
The chilling voice was somehow inside Colt’s head, like the creature was using telepathy.
“Let her go,” Colt said, his gun held high.
Danielle gasped as the Thule tore her helmet away.
“I have the shot,” Oz said, the barrel of the weapon pointed at the Thule’s right eye.
Colt felt something like adrenaline surge through him as his thoughts gave way to instinct. He dropped the handgun and sprang forward, his lip curled back as he grabbed the Thule by its wrist and twisted. Bone snapped, and the alien dropped Danielle.
The Thule lashed out, but Colt ducked out of the way. A second strike from the Thule was followed by a third and then a fourth, but somehow Colt was too fast. He stepped to the left and then the right, countering each blow, first to its throat, then its ear, and twice to the cluster of nerves beneath its arms.
I’ll suck the marrow from your bones!
The Thule spoke into his mind as Colt jumped up and brought his elbow down on its skull. Bone shattered and its eyes rolled back in its head as it crumpled to the ground, but Colt wasn’t finished. He jumped on its chest, pinning two of its shoulders beneath his knees. Fury erupted as he rained down blow after blow on the alien’s face. Its jaw went slack, its tongue lolled, and green blood oozed from deep cuts.
“That’s enough,” someone said, but the voice was far away.
Colt’s nostrils flared as the fear of seeing Danielle in its clutches was replaced by hatred for the warmongering Thule who had already taken his parents. He knew they wouldn’t stop until everyone he loved was eradicated.
“It’s over.”
The voice was closer now, but Colt ignored it. He brought his fist against the Thule’s jaw, and it snapped to hang at an odd angle. Another blow, and bone tore through skin as scales and blood sprayed the floor.
“You’re freaking her out.”
Colt turned and saw Danielle standing with her back against the wall, tears streaming down her face, her eyes wide with fear. Oz walked over and brushed the hair from her cheek. His fingers lightly caressed her skin. He smiled gently as she wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his chest, sobbing.
“I know,” he said as he stroked her hair. “I know.”
