INCURSION - an ALIEN OMNIBUS

by Chris Lowry

  The landscaped looked baked and abandoned.

  The trucks pulled in front of the house and they offloaded Rob and Jodi.

  “Separate them,” Riggs ordered.

  Two Commandos lifted Rob by his shoulders and helped him stumble up the three steps to the wrap around porch and through the screen door.

  A third lead Jodi after them.

  “How long will we wait?” Freddy asked.

  “They'll be here,” Riggs grunted.

  “Is this the right call?” Freddy wondered, almost to himself.

  “It's what the boss wants.”

  Freddy nodded toward the screen door.

  “What are you going to do with that one when they show up? Can we handle him?”

  “I can handle him.”

  “Like on the train?”

  Riggs lunged at Freddy and growled in his face.

  “I don't like your tone.”

  Freddy ignored him, wiped spittle off his cheek.

  “We have to do something about him. Tie him up or knock him out. I don't care. But if he turns into that super fighting machine like he's done before, he will get away.”

  “Not without her.”

  “We're not going to hurt her,” Freddy said.

  “She made her choice,” Riggs smirked. “It's out of our hands.”

  Freddy shook his head, but didn't argue. Riggs was right.

  The powers that be wanted to tie off all the loose ends and that included Jodi once they surrendered Rob.

  He wondered for a moment if he was a loose end too.

  “What do you think will hold him?”

  “Duct tape?” Freddy said absently.

  “Duct tape,” Riggs smiled.

  53

  Baker gathered the papers off Harris' desk and shoved them into a briefcase.

  “Forward all of my messages to Canaveral,”

  Harris ordered. “Let me know when our friends have retrieved their cargo.”

  “Won't that be dangerous?” Baker asked.

  “You roll the dice, you place your bets.”

  Baker nodded.

  “You don't gamble Sir. You know what's going to happen down there.”

  Harris stuffed an unlit cigar in the corner of his mouth and grinned around the edges of it.

  “I know a lot more than I say.”

  He walked over to Baker and put an arm around his shoulder.

  Baker tensed at the uncomfortable familiarity.

  “Why are you telling me?”

  Harris pulled him in close with one arm.

  He pulled a small pistol out of his waistband with the other hand and put it against Baker's temple.

  “Did you forget who I am?”

  He pulled the trigger and blew Baker's brains against the wall.

  He dropped the pistol next to the body and sat in his chair which he kicked away from the desk.

  The chair was still rolling as four Commandos kicked in the door and rushed in with their weapons drawn.

  “Shots fired!” the leader shouted.

  Harris pointed at the still twitching body on the floor.

  “He said he resigned.”

  The Commando walked over to the body and kicked the pistol away.

  “Clean that up,” Harris instructed.

  The Commando saluted and motioned for two men to grab the body.

  As they lifted it off the floor, blood dripped out in a gory mess.

  Harris scooped up his briefcase off the desk and marched out of the room.

  54

  Jodi sat on the floor beside the metal framed bed in the farmhouse.

  Shafts of afternoon sunlight drifted through the sheer curtain and lit up dust motes floating in the air.

  She held her knees close to her chest and rested her head on her arms as she worried about Rob.

  He might have been in the next room or some other part of the farmhouse, or the clomping boots she heard earlier may have been him being carried to the barn.

  She just didn't know and felt defeated.

  Across the hall she heard a door creak open for just a moment and then shut.

  Her door opened quietly and Freddy walked in.

  He sat on the bed next to her, his knee near her head.

  “How is he?” she asked.

  “We taped him up,” Freddy answered. “He won't go berserker when the Nordes show up.”

  “This is wrong Freddy.”

  He slid off the bed and settled on the floor next to her.

  “We’re not going over this again. We pick our sides. Who’s to say we’re not both a little right. They want him. Not you. I’ll get you out of here.”

  “I don’t want out of here, not without him.”

  Freddy put his hand on her arm.

  “I can save your life,” he argued.

  “I don't want you too,” she answered.

  “Does he mean that much to you?

  She turned her face away from him.

  “It's my duty.”

  “I was your duty once.”

  “Let us go,” she pleaded. “Your side is trying to start a war we can't win. Our only hope is that man in the other room.”

  “No.”

  “Freddy, please,” she begged.

  He stood up and moved back to the door.

  Before he left he turned and studied her for a moment.

  She looked helpless, but he knew that was an act.

  She was the strongest woman he had ever met.

  “When they take him, I'm going to keep you here.”

  “No.”

  “You don't get a choice to leave this time,” he said and left.

  55

  Harris strutted into the ready room the last one to arrive.

  The General, the Admiral, the Secretary and Commissioner all stood in line in front of a huge picture window in a VIP conference room that looked out over the Launchpad at Cape Canaveral.

  The President stood by himself in one corner with two aides conversing quietly.

  The room was reserved for their private use with a spread of refreshments on the table.

  Monitors lined one wall providing close up views of the workers as they scrambled around the rockets and shuttle on the tarmac.

  They were so far way the men in the room couldn't see them with the naked eye.

  The window was there for dramatic effect allowing the visitors to watch the fire and billowing smoke as the shuttle blasted into the clear Florida sky.

  The Secretary glanced up as Harris settled in line with them.

  “Glad you could make it.”

  Harris flashed a cocky smile.

  “And miss this? Not in this life.”

  “There they are,” said the President.

  He pushed past his aides and looked at a monitor as the five Shuttle crewmembers and a Rob look-alike marched across the gangway and climbed through the shuttle door.

  “The fate of our future rests in the hands of that man,” said the President.

  56

  Rob moved his hands to his face and gnawed at the duct tape, ripping it off one slow inch at a time.

  It took some skin with it, but the blood lubricated the tape and made it easier.

  One of his teeth was loose and each yank made him contort in pain.

  He didn't stop though.

  He knew they taped him up for a reason and that could only mean the Nordes were coming.

  They were going to take him, and torture him for information about the Grays.

  Otherwise, he reasoned, they would have killed him on sight.

  He ripped away another strip and bit back a scream.

  The door to the room slowly edged open.

  Jodi sneaked through and quietly closed it behind her.

  She leaned down to Rob, peeled the tape from his mouth and gave him a quick peck on the lips.

  “They didn't have a guard on my door,” she whispered. “It took me awhile to pick the lock.”

  She helps him
free his wrists and ankles.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Grand theft auto,” he whispered back.

  “Where did you grow up?”

  “I'll tell you after we get out of here.”

  “Can we?” he asked.

  “I hope,” she shrugged.

  She tried the window but it was painted shut.

  “Damn,” she muttered.

  “Let me try something,” he said.

  He took the duct tape and pressed it to the large pane of glass.

  He built a quick asterisk pattern, smoothed it down, and punched the center.

  The glass cracked loudly, but didn't shatter.

  Jodi watched the door as he pulled the pieces out.

  No one had heard them.

  They dropped through the window and studied the empty field as twilight settled across the sky.

  A dimly lit saucer drifted across the horizon and hovered over the barn.

  “Run,” said Rob.

  And they did.

  57

  A pickup truck cruised along the two-lane country highway.

  Both windows were down and country music was cranked up loud.

  The headlights were on bright casting two cones of light that lit up the road for hundreds of yards.

  Rob stumbled out of the woods and across the road.

  The driver stood on his brakes and fishtailed to a stop.

  “Holy crap,” the driver said as he jumped out of the truck and rushed over to check on Rob. “Are you alright?”

  Rob whirled around and grabbed the driver.

  He punched him once, twice and the man went down.

  “I'm really sorry about that,” said Rob.

  Jodi hurried out of the woods and helped drag the man off the road.

  “Did we have to do this?” he asked her.

  “We can’t have him talking,” she said.

  They heard the whirring echo of a helicopter chopping through the woods and spotlights searching among the trees.

  “Let's get moving,” she said. “I'll drive.”

  58

  Harris shifted his body closer to the General.

  “What's our timetable?”

  “Two hours,” said the General.

  “Time enough for coffee,” grinned Harris.

  “There's always time for coffee,” the General grinned back.

  59

  Jodi stared down at the speedometer on the truck.

  The engine was making a high pitched whining sound so she didn't dare push it any further past 90.

  “We won't make it,” said Rob.

  “We'll make it,” she gritted her teeth and gripped the wheel tighter as she tried to coax it to 95.

  In the VIP viewing suite, the six men lined up at the window to watch the countdown.

  A voice over a speaker box was the only sound in the room.

  “T-minus one minute,” it said.

  60

  Jodi slid the truck to a stop in front of the guard shack on the back entrance to Cape Canaveral.

  A guard jumped out of the shack and when he saw who the crazy driver was, he gave a half smile.

  “What are you doing here?” said Reg.

  “We need to stop the lift off,” Jodi answered.

  Reg lifted his rifle and held them at bay.

  “You hold it right there. My orders are to shoot you on sight.”

  “Then why aren't you shooting?” asked Rob.

  Still he took a step away from Jodi putting distance between them.

  If Reg was going to take a shot, one of them might have a chance to shoot him back or even stop him.

  “Don't tempt me,” said Reg as he lifted the gun higher.

  Rob could hear a small speaker in the guard shack counting down from ten.

  “We're too late,” he said.

  The speaker hit one and they watched a plume of smoke and fire light up in the distance moments before the sound rushed past them.

  The Shuttle started to lift off the ground then exploded brilliantly.

  Jodi threw herself across Rob as the shock wave washed over them and knocked Reg to the ground.

  61

  Five of the men in the conference room covered their eyes to shield it from the explosion on the tarmac across from them.

  Harris smiled as he watched intently.

  “What the Hell just happened!” the President shouted.

  But the one man in the room who could give him an answer wouldn't.

  63

  Jodi lifted Rob up off the ground and helped him dust off.

  “Are you hurt?”

  He shook his head no.

  “That was our only hope,” she sighed.

  A black VW Van puttered up to the guard shack.

  Reg joined them as they watched it approach.

  It pulled alongside Rob and the side door slid back on its tracks.

  “Get in,” said a man's voice.

  The interior was blacked out, the windows tinted too dark to let in any light.

  Rob and Jodi leaned closer to inspect the inside of the van.

  Two huge forearms shot out and jerked them inside.

  The door slid shut even as the engine wound up and the van puttered away.

  Reg watched it go and scratched his head.

  64

  Rob lay on his back in the rear of the van and stared up at a roof covered in spray painted matte black tin foil.

  He sat up and saw the man who kidnapped them sitting in a barber's chair bolted to the floor of the van and decorated like a cast of science fiction captain's chair.

  He was short, stocky and thickly muscled with a gleaming smile and mischievous eyes.

  “Who the Hell are you?” Jodi barked as she sat up beside Rob.

  They had to fight to keep their balance as the van made a series of left turns.

  “You're the one and only Rob Crow,” the man boomed. “I'm Selkirk.”

  He held out a hand. Rob stared at it in wonder for a moment.

  “You,” he finally breathed.

  “Who is Selkirk,” Jodi fought for balance and barked again. “And what is your driver doing?”

  “SDR's!” shouted Selkirk. “Surveillance Detection Routes.”

  “This is the head of the network,” Rob said in awe.

  The driver giggled nervously.

  “Ignore Ned,” advised Selkirk. “He's not used to covert ops yet. Glad you weren't in that little accident back there.”

  “Was that yours? Rob asked.

  Neg giggled.

  “We’re not terrorists,” Selkirk tried not to look offended and only slightly succeeded. “That’s your tax dollars at work.”

  “The government wouldn’t sabotage their only chance at peace,” Jodi said but lost steam as the words came out of her mouth.

  “Who has tried to stop you at every turn?” Selkirk asked. “Never mind. That’s not the point. I think we need to get you to an appointment.”

  Rob smirked up at the man.

  “Yeah, you got a shuttle laying around?”

  Selkirk laid a finger on the side of his nose and winked.

  65

  Harris stood in the corner of the conference room as the other five men argued, debated and discussed what happened.