by Jay Morris
“Alright!” Ethan said.
We all three ran to the rear hatch and waited for it to lower. We went out and circled around towards the front of the machine. Now I could hear the bull horn,
“…and you exit the vehicle, leave all weapons behind or you will be fired on.”
There was a pause then he began again
“I repeat, you have been identified as alien collaborators, the government of the United States demands you exit the vehicle, leave all weapons behind or you will be fired on.”
This was bad, very, very bad. All three of us were carrying our rifles, we heard the message just as we came into view of the soldiers. The soldiers true to their word opened fire on us. Ethan was hit several by several rounds and he fell forward onto his face. I knew he was dead or dying, you don’t get hit so many times and get up and walk away from it.
“Cease fire! Cease fire!” I heard Doc Mary screaming, her rifle was on her shoulder her hands held up in surrender, she too was cut down. Screaming I opened fire with my M-4 at the sons-of-bitches who had killed my friends. I think I got a hit but mostly I just got them to duck behind their vehicles. I ran back towards the rear hatch and fired around the far side of the vehicle just to keep them honest.
I was crying, Mary was dead and they were trying to kill us all. I heard the upstairs hatch slide open above me, I looked up and saw Tucker, and he was only wearing his blue boxers, just like he had on the Med-table. He was running towards the front of the vehicle. The soldiers had given up on shooting at me and were concentrating their fire on Tucker. Tucker sprinted along the walkway, he was so freaking fast that it was hard to actually focus on him. His arms and legs were like a blur.
I fired again to try and support Tucker but only got six more rounds off before my clip was empty. Tucker leaped from the front of the vehicle, he landed in a run, not even missing a step. He covered the 20 yards to the barricade in just moments. He leaped over the trucks and landed among them. It made it hard for them to fire on him without hitting their own people. I heard screams, and I saw a headless corpse go flying into the air. I ran inside to get another magazine and to get help. What I missed but the screens in the control room captured was unbelievable.
Tucker landed on his feet and hammered his fist on the nose of the soldier in front of him, he fell backwards his nose driven up into his brain. He stepped forward and dodged a bayonet thrust, he snapped the guys forearm like it was a twig. Taking the rifle he hit a third soldier with the stock, shattering the man’s skull. He flipped the rifle over and stabbed the man with the broken arm through the sternum with his own bayonet.
One soldier fired a three round burst, incredibly only the first scored a hit, after the first round Tucker side stepped, moved forward and grabbing the end of the barrel pointed it at two other soldiers who screamed as the rounds hit home. The horrified man, in shock for shooting his buddies froze. Tucker gave him a wicked chop to the throat causing his head to come off.
There were soldiers on either side of him now and in the chaos their bullets were more of a hazard to each other than to the frightening bald man. Tucker moved to his right, charged a soldier who seemed so shocked he didn’t even move when Tucker took his head in both hands and snapped his neck.
Tucker looked like he was in fast forward while the others were in slow motion. When Tucker picked up the man he had just killed, used the corpse as a shield as he ran into three soldiers whose had stood shoulder to shoulder against the treat. Tucker grabbed one man’s left arm and tore it off, he hit the man on his left with it, and his lower jaw was shattered so badly it was left dangling from the left side of his face. The last man was on the ground trying to get out from under the corpse. Tucker brought his foot down so hard it flattened the man’s skull.
Tucker was hit by a second bullet and it exploded from his left side. It didn’t slow him at all. He spun and charged the men behind him. As he went by he tore the bayoneted M-4 from the man he had stabbed earlier. He swiped across a man’s waist with it and his intestines spilled from him like someone emptied a zip lock bag full of spaghetti. He threw the rifle like a spear, impaling a man as he tried to bring his squad automatic weapon around. Before he hit the ground Tucker had brought his forearm across one man’s chest, knocking him to the ground, picked up another man and brought him down over his knee, breaking his back. Without rising he punched the man he clothes-lined in the face, caving it inward like an over ripe melon.
The last three soldiers had made a break towards one of their trucks. Tucker picked up the helmeted head and threw it at one of running, terrified men. He went down like he had been hit between the eyes with a hammer. Tucker ran past the dying man to bring down a second man just before he reached the truck. The last man started the truck and sped away. I felt like I had just watched one of those nature documentaries where the lion chases down a bunny rabbit or something.
Anyway, by the time Karen and Amy joined me, I had grabbed two magazines and was heading up the ramp to the second floor walkway.
“They are firing on us!” I yelled over my shoulder.
“Who is?” Amy demanded.
“Soldiers!”
I peeked outside and not coming under fire I moved along the walkway to the front of the vehicle. It was carnage beyond the barricade, but one of the vehicles was gone. Standing alone among the dead, covered in blood was Tucker. He was not moving. An underling appeared next to me with a com-pad in its hand. I took it from him, it read,
“Tucker-Defend”
And below that,
“Tucker-Stop”
The little alien took the pad back typed something then looked at the barricade so I did too. Tucker was slowly walking back towards the vehicle. Sixteen dead soldiers. Sixteen dead in less than two minutes. Shit.
I looked back at the little alien and looked over his shoulder, the pad said.
“Tucker-Return”
I shook my head, Tucker wasn’t a human anymore. Tucker was a Defender.
Day 54, Continued, Fort Bragg
Commandant of the Marine Corps and Chief of Staff Crook slowly lowered the handset to its cradle. He sighed and turned to look at a map hung on a display board, the location of the road block was marked with a red push pin, and the Airbus 212 they had used to get them in position was marked with a blue pin. Sixteen out of twenty men were dead, his men and he had damn few left to lose. The corporal who survived the ambush had said three humans had come out of the first vehicle, they had rifles but they were slung. Air Force Lt. Bakersfield ordered his men to open fire. Two of the civilians were killed. The third returned fire but withdrew behind the building. A fourth, unarmed individual leapt from the 2nd floor walkway, jumped over the barricade and massacred his men. One man in his underwear. One man. One.
The number kept echoing in his mind. It wasn’t possible but Jennings was a good soldier, reliable and cool headed. He himself had seen Jennings disembowel a monster during the war in the dark. He was tough as old shoe leather so he didn’t know what to think.
“I hate this bullshit” he muttered.
He started down the hall to the oval office and President Burwell. He straightened his tie and buttoned his blouse before he knocked on the door, this idiot might very well get him killed.
Day 54, Continued Galveston Island
Hernando’s forward scouts reported that the long awaited alien pods had arrived at last but instead of coming through Houston proper they had appeared southwest of Alligator Lake, they crossed Bastrop Bay and started up the San Luis Pass Road. They had avoided two kill zones on the outskirts of Houston, Hernando’s men had to scrambled back towards the North end of the island. The Da-Nah left nothing behind, they were erasing the island, wiping it clean, like chalk from a chalkboard. But while mankind has many faults they do have some skills that cannot be denied and one of those skills is their ability to demonstrate incredible creativity where finding ways to kill is involved. This was no exception. When the Da-Nah reached Indian Beac
h Road the humans made the first move.
From a heavily forested ditch the Da-Nah vehicles started to take heavy caliber rifle fire (50 BMG and 338 Lapua). The powerful rounds pierced the shell of the vessels and in one vessel killed two siblings who had not heeded the Director 1’s instruction for all noncombatants to move to the more heavily armored engine compartments. But their real purpose was to draw their attention from the inlet next to Mitot Road. Two high speed boats ran right up the beach, four men, two from each boat vaulted from the craft and sprinted in pairs towards the two nearest vehicles. One man in each pair held a com-pad to the access panel. A moment later the doors opened and the men ran in with assault rifles at the ready.
In each case the men fired at anyone or anything that moved, then they didn’t have far to go, they were heading for the engine rooms. There was a tremendous roar as the tail end of one vehicle rose straight into the air, before it came crashing down the second vehicle was destroyed in just the same way. As the boat pilots attempted to make a run for the copse of trees under the cover of the concentrated rifle fire they were cut in half by lasers fired from the 2nd story catwalks. The lead vehicle edged closer and the riflemen had to make a run for it, the two people (a man and a woman) met the same fate as the pilots.
After that there were no dramatic efforts, the Da-Nah were paranoid about their flanks, the humans sniped at every opportunity, killing 5 Da-Nah technicians and losing one sniper to a bolt gun. The result was that by nightfall the Da-Nah had just reached the edge of Offatts Bayou. The alien vehicles came to a stop, unwilling to face the Aggressives in the dark, they settled down to wait for the dawn.
Day 55, Pelican Island
The sun rose to the defender’s back, it illuminated the Da-Nah forces: seven Da-Nah vehicles, three modified Defender’s standing in between the vehicles, and at least forty technicians armed with laser cutters and bolt guns either spread out behind the Defenders or placed on the raised catwalks of the largest vehicles. The humans were making a show of their defense, but that’s all it was. A show intended to draw the Da-Nah into their mixed density mine field, they wouldn’t affect the vehicles but they would play hell with the aliens on the ground. The aliens began their advance, 50 yards and the humans opened fire, their small caliber weapons having no effect on the vehicles but more than one technician fell in the warm Texas sun.
Just before they reached the mine field the vehicles turn sharply to the right towards the Gulf, they continues until they had cleared the field then they turned back to the northeast towards the human’s positions.
“Oh my God.” One fighter yelled.
“How did they know?” said another.
At last the woman in charge of the squad yelled
“Fall back! Fall back!”
The team ran, but no matter how quick they were, lasers were quicker still. Only three of eight made it to the trucks hidden for their escape. Only one truck pulled away and headed to the north towards the Pelican Island Causeway.
The alien vehicles ignored them and instead turned on an intercept course with the Sea Wolff Park. As they passed an oil refinery on the island their lasers punctured the enormous tanks. They were 40 feet tall and held a quarter of a million gallons each. There were six of them and after the first one ignited it was only a matter of seconds before they all went up. The explosion was enormous and it shattered windows for miles. The coal black column of smoke rose into the sky marking the battle for survival.
When the alien vehicles came into view, Hernando was on the U.S.S. Steward and his heart was in his throat, he felt like he was going to throw up. Once again the aliens were avoiding the traps they had so carefully set. They circled to the landward side of the U.S.S. Cavala and had taken out the only 50 caliber that had been in a position to do any good. The other two were moving but by the time they were redeployed all the people on the Cavala would be dead. He could hear rifle fire and could see his fighters racing around the edge of the mine field between the two ships in an effort to reinforce the Cavala but there just wasn’t time. Black smoke from the refinery fire stung his eyes as it rolled over their positions. Suddenly one of the Alien vehicles rose ass first into the air and it was folded almost to a 90 degree angle as it exploded. The Da-Nah ground forces seemed confused, as if for the first time they didn't know what was going to happen next. He watched through his binoculars as a Defender was run over by a vehicle. It had been knocked down, flattened in a way that reminded him of a stretch Armstrong doll from his youth. Then it exploded.
The responsible vehicle turned and ran alongside another. He shook his head and checked to make sure that he saw what he thought he saw.
“Madre de Dios!“ he said making the sigh of the cross. There was an American flag attached to the side of the vehicle
This had to be the Virginians the underling had told them about. Between them and the black smoke now obscuring everything and the fact that his people were now able to put effective rifle fire on target for the first time he felt a flicker of hope. That flicker roared to life when the distinctive chatter of a 50 caliber machine gun echoed through the park. He burst into laughter when it was joined by a second one. Several Da-Nah vehicles had settled to the ground, smoke coming from them. His men were moving on the edge of the chaos, firing on the technicians when they were exposed.
Then from the smoke he saw two of his men fly into the air, landing thirty feet away he was sure they were or soon would be dead. A Da-Nah Defender had separated from the mass of burning and milling vehicles. The monster was not in the field of fire of his 50s. His men started to fall back. Their rifles having no effect on the pink monster. The Defender suddenly stood up straight and tried to reach around behind itself with both hands, the giant stepped so that Hernando could see that a man wearing blue jeans and a plaid shirt was firmly attached to the creatures back.
“Dios mío, esto es imposible!” he said to himself.
The giant’s back was being shredded by the two large knives held by the man on its back. He was using the foot long blades as hand holds. He pulled himself up a bit more and freeing his right hand blade he started to hack away at the rubbery pink flesh. A moment later he buried the blade into the creatures shoulder and released it. He reached into the gaping shoulder wound arched his back and with three violent jerks pulled three shiny, bloody steel rods from the things shoulder joint. The creature staggered and dropped to its knees. The man rolled away then got quickly to his feet. He was moving in from the front when the monster surprised the man by being able to swing out hard with his good arm, the man flew through the air and crashed into the hull of a burning Da-Nah vehicle.
Hernando could not believe his eyes when the man extricated himself from the crumpled vehicle and ran once more towards the Defender. The Defender tried to grab the man but he slapped the arm upwards, the arm had to weigh at least 200 pounds all by itself, the man slapped it away and ducked under it to close with the monster. The man hit the monster in the forehead with the palm of his left hand, it snapped back and the man took the opportunity to slash viciously across the creature’s throat. Blue blood sprayed by the gallon into the air. The man slashed again and again until at last its head was held on only by a few strands of wire and a patch of pink flesh. The man stepped away and the creature fell forward with a crash that Hernando could hear even from this distance.
Two Da-Nah vehicles were escaping to the south and one of those was leaving a trail of smoke behind it. His men were entering the disabled Da-Nah vehicles (by force if necessary) and were executing any Da-Nah they found. The strange, barefoot man followed his men into the back of the nearest one. Hernando prayed, he thanked God for his people, for their victory and for the very life he gave them. Then he started down the hall from the control room of the Stewart to join his men and to meet the strangers and the strange man who fought monsters with a knife.
Day 55, Continued, Kingston upon Hull
Brigadier General Horace Scott-McInerney, GSM, VC (Ret.) ha
d been a young Lieutenant in the BCFK, (British Commonwealth Forces Korea) back in 1950. After that a Captain with the Pathfinder platoon, 16th Air Assault Brigade. His last combat assignment had been in the Faulklands War with Argentina. He retired in 1984 after 35 years and 7 combat deployments in Her Majesties Royal Army. Now here he was at the age of 86, once more leading young men and women into battle. He was not the man he once was, that is true, but he was a far better officer than he once was as well. Now he was patient, he was thoughtful, he was merciless and after playing chess with the damned aliens all over England he was now ready. He checked his binoculars once more.
The alien vehicles were still lined up on a beach on the banks of the river Hull. The irony was not lost on him, he knew the history, in 1066 a massive invasion fleet was destroyed right here by Harold King of England. The leaders of that invasion, Tosrig and Hardrada were already dead by then, and only 50 of the 500 Viking long ships had been able to escape the fury of Harold and his housecarls. He was determined to not be so generous.
It was time, he thought, he turned to the young lady who was acting as his attache’ and said,
“I think it is time for those fellows to learn they are not welcome here.”
The woman spoke into her headset and the huge 26 liter V-12 engines of his three Challenger II main battle tanks (from the Royal Scotts Dragoon Guards) roared to life. They moved parallel to the river then in formation they turned hard right and practically soared over the berm into the enemy camp. The blasts from their 120mm guns were deafening and the 7.62 caliber machine guns lit up the sky with their tracers. His infantry consisting of 29 Royal Army and Navy personnel was augmented by 41 civilians that had volunteered for the duration. The oldest of them was 67 the youngest was 9. There were both male and female warriors, the women he had called “his modern day Boadiceas”. In fact, among them was a woman named Kate, who was for the last 52 days, the Queen of England but for now she was a rifleman in second squad of his assault team. She wore camouflage and combat boots and carried an H&K assault rifle. There was not a single person, including the General who would not gladly lay down their life for her. In his memoirs he would call her “the most plucky and determined warrior, with a keen eye and an iron will, with integrity and strength she would re-define the word Queen for evermore.” They followed the tanks halfway down the bank then took up firing positions, what they lacked in fire control they made up for in volume and in the desire to kill.
