Predator (Old Ironsides Book 3)

by Dean Crawford

  ‘Damn it they’re everywhere!’ Allen said over the radio. ‘We’ve got sixteen signals here in New Washington alone, twenty three in New Chicago, more in New London.’

  ‘I’ve got eighteen in New Moscow,’ Vasquez added.

  The two squad cars reached the precinct building within minutes, both landing rapidly. Nathan burst into Captain Forrester’s office alongside Foxx and spoke before she did.

  ‘Signals corps! Have them tie the signals emissions from interrogation room four to the ID chip of any recipient planet side!’

  Forrester blinked in surprise but he saw the urgency on their faces and he relayed the command instantly.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ he uttered as soon as he was done.

  ‘Genius here just started Armageddon,’ Vasquez said as he jabbed a thumb at Nathan.

  ‘I got our captive to signal all other entities that have infiltrated our society,’ Nathan snapped in his own defense. ‘The signals corps can track them now, once they’ve matched the signal to the receiving ID chip.’

  ‘And if those entities then go and murder somebody else and switch identities?’ Allen challenged as he hurried into the office behind Vasquez.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Nathan agreed, ‘but it’ll take time to do that and if we can grab them before they make the switch, we’re golden.’

  ‘That’s a hell of a risk,’ Forrester pointed out.

  ‘So is waiting for the invasion to begin! We also know that the infiltrators have a bit of trouble holding their water.’

  ‘They do what now?’

  ‘Trust us on this,’ Foxx insisted. ‘Send a signal to all CSS stations that the entities appear to be attempting to infiltrate government, law enforcement and military positions. That’s how they’re going to overpower us. It’s what happened on Ayleea! If we can’t get the upper hand here on earth we’re going down and it’ll happen real fast. We need to deploy everyone and everything as fast as we can and wipe these things out before they try to take hold.’

  Forrester nodded, apparently stuck for words, but then Vasquez spoke for him.

  ‘Oh man,’ he said softly, ‘I think we’re too late even for that.’

  Nathan turned as Vasquez hit a switch and a holo screen shimmered into view. Upon it, Tamarin Solly spoke to them as though she were in the room alongside them.

  ‘It has become clear that police forces across the orbital stations, the globe and the CSS fleet at Polaris Station are mobilizing against a threat that appears to be facing mankind. I have heard from a reliable source at CSS New York City that there are beings among us who are not of this earth, who intend to infiltrate our society and attack us from within. In a shocking development, we understand that the police were involved in a pursuit and capture of just such an entity and even now have it in captivity but have chosen not to inform, or warn, the public!’

  Foxx stared in horror at the transmission.

  ‘How the hell did she figure this out so damned quickly?!’

  Nathan thought back to the crime scenes and he realized quickly what was happening.

  ‘The entities have infiltrated our media and government organizations,’ he said. ‘If one of them is placed highly in CSS they could have informed Solly of what’s happening to create panic.’

  ‘Or Solly could be one of them herself,’ Vasquez suggested.

  ‘No, she’d have been identified by now on the signals sweep,’ Allen replied. ‘She’s got inside information somehow.’

  ‘It is believed that there may be over four thousand alien entities living among us and that they may have been here for some time. According to one source, they may have even been here for centuries.’

  ‘Damn her!’ Foxx snapped, one hand moving instinctively for her plasma pistol. ‘She’s fomenting just the kind of panic the enemy will want. This is how it begins.’

  ‘Chaos behind enemy lines,’ Vasquez agreed with her, the quote sounding to Nathan like something from the detective’s Marine days. ‘Disrupt and destabilize,’ Vasquez went on. ‘We’ve go to shut them down, right now, be seen to be doing something or the people will start to take matter into their own hands and before you know it everybody will think everyone else is some kind of alien.’

  Nathan hurried across to the office windows and looked out onto the sparkling, rain soaked streets. Shafts of sunlight were sweeping across the cityscape as the station revolved, earth’s vast and baleful blue–white eye glowing brightly as veils of rain drifted across the packed streets and sidewalks. From his elevated vantage point, Nathan could see some people standing and listening to Solly’s broadcast beaming live into their ocular implants. Others, he noted, were already running while others still changed direction sharply, diverted by the rapidly spreading news.

  ‘Damn it. Schmidt, do you have anything yet?’

  Doctor Schmidt spoke clearly, analyzing events as he always did with a sort of detached and clinical appraisal, as though he were watching a drama show and not real life.

  ‘Solly’s broadcast appears to be designed to create panic and confusion and mistrust, with the signal being received by some four thousand or so individuals on New Washington alone.’

  ‘The same must be happening across the orbital stations and planet side,’ Foxx said as she looked out onto the streets with Nathan. ‘We can’t help them now.’

  ‘Yes we can,’ Nathan said as he turned to Schmidt. ‘There must have been a single part of that infiltrator’s signal that was the same for all recipients and transmitters, that went to the one it called a Sentinel?’

  Schmidt assessed the data and nodded.

  ‘Yes. A very low frequency signal propagating from a planet side source.’

  ‘Do you have a location?’ Nathan asked.

  ‘I’m trying to lock it down now,’ Schmidt said as he focused.

  ‘You think that’s where the main player in all of this is?’ Foxx asked Nathan.

  ‘Gotta be,’ Nathan replied.

  Schmidt turned to them.

  ‘You had best hurry,’ he said. ‘The replying signal was emitted from CSS Headquarters, New York City.’

  Nathan and Foxx exchanged a glance.

  ‘Coburn,’ Foxx said. ‘It must be somebody close to her.’

  ‘Do we have an ID?’ Nathan asked.

  ‘No,’ Schmidt said, ‘Of all signals identified, a quarter belong to military personnel and cannot be accessed.’

  Nathan was about to turn and run with Foxx from the office when an emergency announcement was broadcast across all of New Washington’s districts and into the ocular implant of every single citizen. He turned and stared into the face of Commodore Adam Hawker, the British commander’s stoic expression and cold blue eyes strangely emotionless as he spoke.

  ‘Lock down protocol has been initiated,’ Hawker droned. ‘All citizens are advised to remain in their homes and offices. Repeat, lock down protocol has been initiated. All flights into and out of the station are cancelled and all control of the response has been handed to military command. For communications safety, all holosaps will be shut down until further notice.’

  ‘What?!’ Nathan shouted, and whirled to the doctor. ‘Can you get that infiltrator data out to the surface before you’re shut off?’

  Doctor Schmidt’s shoulders sagged.

  ‘All communications with the surface have been cut off and there is no time for me to complete my work,’ he said.

  Before Nathan could reply he saw Doctor Schmidt smile a strange, sad smile and then his projection flickered out and in the blink of an eye he was gone.

  Nathan took one look at Foxx and he knew what she was thinking.

  ‘Hawker,’ he said. ‘He’s one of them. He’s shutting down all lines of communication.’

  ‘And he’s with Arianna Coburn right now,’ Foxx said. ‘If they infiltrate the CSS at that level the people will be putty in their hands! We need to get down there!’

  Nathan knew that the station’s lockdown protocol wo
uld prevent any craft from legally leaving or entering either the station or earth’s atmosphere. That meant they would have to figure out another way down to the surface.

  ‘Where’s Betty?’

  Betty Buzz Luther was a patrol officer with a formidable reputation for what was euphemistically termed “tactical flying”. A sergeant and significantly older than most other officers still on the force, she also had a reputation for being willing to break the rules.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Foxx said as she checked her sidearm.

  Nathan followed Foxx out of the office and up a stairwell toward the roof.

  ‘What are we going to do when we get down there? It could be anybody, any one of her staff, even Coburn herself?’

  Foxx shoved her way through the door onto the roof and Nathan heard the panic from the streets below as people ran this way and that, already consumed by terror that they or their loved ones were being consumed and infiltrated by hellish beings from another world.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Foxx admitted as she reached for her personal communicator and cursed as she saw that it was receiving no signal. ‘Do you know where Betty lives?’

  ‘East Three,’ Nathan replied as Foxx changed direction toward their squad cruiser. ‘You think she’ll be able to commandeer a shuttle?’

  ‘Only one way to find out.’

  ***

  XXVIII

  Ayleea

  ‘We’re cattle?’ Tyrone uttered.

  The cavern was filled with nothing but the sound of crackling flames from torches burning in endless ranks like ragged stars in the night. Despite the heat of the jungles outside Tyrone felt cold now as he listened to the elder’s reply.

  ‘The worlds that we know as homes are to them, farms,’ he said. ‘We didn’t know it but they have been watching us for centuries and mankind for much longer. It is written in your history books, the stories about flying discs in the skies that nobody could identify.’

  ‘UFOs,’ Tyrone nodded.

  ‘We had them here too, from time to time,’ the elder said as he pointed with one crooked finger up to the sky somewhere outside. ‘Until our vessels became more powerful, more numerous, and then suddenly they appeared no more in our skies. We thought that was a good thing, because we didn’t understand what they were. Now, we know that when they disappeared it was the beginning of the end for our people.’

  Tyrone realized that he had never heard an Ayleean speak in such tones of defeat and resignation. A proud warrior race who thrived on the belief that they had prevailed against all odds and human brutality, they had never been defeated in battle for a want of courage. Only mankind’s superior technology and cunning had quashed the Ayleean’s savage spirit.

  ‘What were they, these UFO’s?’ he asked.

  It was Shylo who answered.

  ‘Shepherds, effectively. They monitored us just like they monitored humanity for millennia. Our ancestors all thought that they were watching us with some noble aim of contacting us when we were suitably advanced to warrant their intervention. The truth is that they were waiting for life to become abundant enough and our technology to be advanced enough that they could harvest everything for themselves.’

  Tyrone frowned.

  ‘There has been life on our worlds for millions of years,’ he said. ‘How come they didn’t do this a long time ago?’

  The elder rested his hands on a thick cane, the length of which was studded with what looked like hundreds of razor blades.

  ‘Efficiency,’ came the reply. ‘Why not wait for a species to advance technologically before plundering a planet? We think that the species behind this is not all that far advanced compared to us, but had just enough of an advantage to overpower us in battle and conquer us by subterfuge. We were infiltrated long before this happened.’

  ‘Shape shifters,’ Shylo spat. ‘Cowards who hide rather than fight. When they revealed themselves among us they slaughtered thousands of our most experienced soldiers, commanders and High Councilors. They switched off our defensive shields, our weapons guidance systems, our communications, everything. Then they turned many of our own weapons against us. There were so many, and by the time we realized what had happened and attempted to mount a defense, the big warships arrived and finished the work that their shape shifting accomplices had begun.’ Shylo averted his eyes from Tyrone’s, shamed at their defeat. ‘It was over within twenty four hours.’

  Tyrone looked at the few hundred Ayleeans gathered inside the cavern, and then he looked at the elder.

  ‘They killed them all?’

  ‘No,’ the old Ayleean responded. ‘They were taken away in massive transport ships, perhaps to be enslaved, perhaps to be consumed. We don’t know which. All that we do know is that we and perhaps a few small pockets of survivors around the planet remain. The infiltrators were only the first wave. After them came the octopeds.’

  ‘The what’s?’

  ‘The infantry,’ Shylo explained, one fist clenching and un–clenching in slow rhythm, ‘the real enemy, the species that inhabits those capital ships. They are crustaceans of some kind, multi legged with exoskeletons, predators. They overwhelmed us in numbers and forced us back into the jungles, taking our families away from us.’

  Tyrone heaved his legs up beneath him and stood, his hands still manacled behind his back.

  ‘The human survivors, where are they?’

  The elder frowned. ‘There are no humans on Ayleea.’

  ‘I picked up their distress call,’ Tyrone insisted. ‘They were definitely human.’

  Shylo looked at the elders. ‘The drones that attacked him, how could they have known where he would be?’

  ‘They could have tracked his fighter when it landed,’ the elder offered.

  ‘But the drones have only a short range,’ Shylo argued, ‘and we did not detect any distress signals.’

  Tyrone began to feel a cold pit forming deep in his belly. ‘If the infiltrators sent a fake signal to draw me in, they might have done so to draw you out.’

  Shylo nodded. ‘They must know roughly where we’re hiding out, and so would have drones dispatched from the nearest city.’

  The elder sighed, his massive chest sinking as he spoke. ‘They have again used deception to outwit us. The drones you destroyed will have led them out here, and they will search for us.’

  Tyrone nodded.

  ‘You sure can’t stay here forever,’ he said. ‘They’ll find us eventually.’

  ‘And we will stand and fight to the death!’ Shylo snarled.

  A rumble of low growls of approval echoed like warring demons through the darkness of the cavern, but Tyrone shook his head.

  ‘That’s what you did the first time. How’s that worked out for you?’

  ‘You insult our courage?!’ Shylo roared, his voice booming across the cavern.

  ‘It’s no insult to speak the truth. This isn’t the time to fight,’ Tyrone said. ‘This is the time to think.’

  ‘Thinking has got us nowhere!’ Shylo snapped.

  ‘Fighting didn’t exactly save the day either,’ Tyrone pointed out as he gestured with a tilt of his head to the cavern around them.

  ‘We cannot defeat this enemy,’ the elder said. ‘They are too powerful.’

  ‘And yet here you are,’ Tyrone said, ‘not dead yet, right?’

  The elder watched him but said nothing.

  ‘There has to be a way out of this,’ Tyrone said. ‘I saw the remains of the fleet and I saw Fortitude. She looked undamaged.’

  Shylo’s carved fangs bared in disgust. ‘That is their prize.’

  ‘Who’s prize?’

  ‘The shape shifters,’ the elder replied. ‘From what we understand they have no means to transport themselves across space quickly, and so they occupy vessels as a cocoon and travel aboard them. Presumably in return for assisting our attackers by infiltrating and weakening our defenses prior to the attack they get a new home, your ship Fortitude and what’s left of our fleet.’
>
  Tyrone lifted his chin, determined to get the hell out of Ayleea.

  ‘We have a way of defeating the shape shifters,’ he said.

  ‘Impossible,’ Shylo spat. ‘They cannot be detected, we never know who they are!’

  ‘You don’t need to,’ Tyrone insisted. ‘All we need is a clotting agent, like a glue. The shape shifters tried to board one of the CSS flagships months ago and were repelled because the fluid devised by our scientists prevented them from moving or changing shape.’

  The elders looked up sharply at Tyrone, eyes widened.

  ‘The goab trees,’ one of them whispered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The trees,’ Shylo said, his anger suddenly replaced by curiosity, ‘the infiltrators would not follow us into the trees sometimes during the invasion. We did not understand why, but if the goab trees were the reason…’

  ‘The sap,’ the elder said, and then turned to Tyrone. ‘The goab tree is coated with sap that runs in thick rivers down its trunk twice a day to protect it from the sun’s radiation. Our ancestors used it as a fuel in times of emergency and it burns in our torches now.’

  Tyrone looked at the torches and felt the first glimmer of hope flicker into life within him.

  ‘This sap,’ he said, ‘it’s readily available?’

  ‘The goab trees grow in thick forests everywhere,’ Shylo confirmed, ‘but they are also home to predators who use the jungle canopy as a home and defend the trees in return.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Tyrone said, ‘I’ve met one, and it didn’t take kindly to being hit with a plasma bolt.’

  Tyrone made his decision. Although he hated it, a glance at the Ayleean children still watching him from the shadows convinced him that one way or the other, these people were every bit as desperate as he was. There was no longer a choice. He would ally himself to them until he got a chance to get away. You couldn’t be too choosy about your allies in time of war, he reminded himself.

  ‘They destroyed your cities, but I take it there may still be transports available?’

  The elders nodded. ‘The planet is large and so are the cities. They rounded up most of our people but many areas remain untouched.’