Stranded

by William Vitka

  Fiske readies a bottle of rubbing alcohol.

  After Swift chugs the booze, he nods. “Do it.”

  Fiske pours the alcohol.

  Swift winces and bites his lip so hard it drips blood.

  Daffy reaches for Bugs.

  The pilot leader runs his fingers along his subordinate’s head.

  The alien is a half-dissolved mess below its midsection. Its once-blue skin takes on a brown hue. It’s still being consumed by the bile from the burrower.

  Gordy sees.

  Doc watches.

  Bugs gestures to him.

  Doc hands his Colt over to the pilot.

  Bugs looks the gun over. It’s primitive by his standards, but it’ll do the job. Only thing that matters is the trigger. Then the bullet that follows.

  The pilot squats on its haunches near Daffy.

  Wile E. turns and walks away.

  Bugs rubs Daffy’s head one last time. The alien says something in its own tongue.

  Gordy hears it:

  You were an honorable fighter. You fought to save them. And you saved us. You die a hero. There will be no pain. You will stand in the Great Hall among the Warriors.

  Your children, and our people, will never forget you.

  A lone gunshot rings out.

  Doc flinches.

  Gordy hangs his head.

  * * *

  Doc carries Winston’s small body outside. He places the dog next to Ackerman.

  They haul Mosshart’s body beside it.

  Then the gelatinous mass that used to be Mags.

  Bugs and Wile E. place Daffy’s form next to the others.

  Swift looks at Mosshart. “I’ve known the man for years. But I don’t have a goddamn clue what he’d want me to do now.” He drinks from a bottle of Jameson. He wobbles. Cuz of pain. Physical and mental. “The old sonuvabitch died fighting.”

  They all stand in a semicircle around the corpses. Aliens and humans mourning.

  But there’s no time. They’re exposed. The dead could be targets.

  Gordy knows that the pilots’ warmachines are not above reassembling the fallen into new, more horrible forms. And if they don't do it, the Hroza's parasite might. He knows this cuz it’s what the pilots are talking about right now.

  Vaporizing the remains is the only thing that makes any sense.

  Bugs and Wile E. unleash a torrent of power from their palm blasters.

  * * *

  Swift is perfectly drunk. He mutters incoherencies about his almost-ex-wife. His two kids. He passes out on the sole couch not yet used as a barricade.

  Miller and Whitmore are about to call “All clear” when the center of the airstrip erupts and an enormous burrower emerges. The hole’s fifty fuckin feet from the office. And this monster’s easily three times as big as the one that erupted from the floor inside.

  Miller pops a flare and regrets it. He didn’t really want to see.

  Behind the big burrower are another two dozen spider-squids.

  He glances up. Catches sight of two rays.

  The world goes blue again—not from raw electricity, but from spotlights.

  Five Bell AH-1Z Vipers streak overhead. They circle and fire. They open the assault with Hydra missile pods. Tear monsters up with their M197 gatling cannons. In seconds, the nightmares along the tarmac of Wiseman Airport are reduced to smoking ashes.

  Miller wonders, How many of these bugs are there?

  Doc and Rubin stand between the two soldiers. Doc says, “The fuck is going on?”

  Miller turns to him and smiles.

  Whitmore grins. Happier than a pig in shit. “Reinforcements, man.”

  Miller says, “Peace through superior firepower.”

  36.

  Fiske says, “So we’re gonna kill them all now, right?”

  Swift says, “I think that’s the plan.” He still tastes whiskey on his tongue. “Least, I hope it is.”

  Doc says, “Military hasn’t murdered the pilots yet. So that’s a plus.”

  Gordy says, “They won’t. The pilots’ll defend themselves if they have to.” He turns to the other survivors from Sugar Tits. “Look at what happened to Ackerman.”

  They chew on that. Watch US Special Forces prepare their own weapons of war. Gunships patrol the airstrip. Troops busy themselves around a few of the stationary ones. More operators move equipment from the Chinook MH-47Gs, like gun placements and Humvees.

  Everyone else does maintenance.

  Endless goddamn maintenance.

  Hollywood makes it seem all action-as-fuck. The whole thing. Enlist, bang, you’re killing guys without having to reload. Or whatever.

  Meanwhile: A sniper is using math as a weapon to calculate how he’s gotta aim to kill a guy a mile away.

  Meanwhile: Aircraft need several dozen hours of maintenance work for every hour of flying.

  Chopper pilots scream for grease and tools.

  Doesn’t take long for Wiseman Airport to look like Wiseman proper did before. The settlement seemed safe as long as there were enough weapons around.

  Doc gets a bad feeling. He glances to Swift. Knows the site manager’s thinking the same thing.

  This bullshit sense of security.

  Fiske sees Swift and Doc exchange sighs. “Still fucked, ain’t we?”

  Doc says, “Probably.”

  * * *

  Doc taps Miller’s shoulder outside.

  Miller turns with a smirk. “What’s up, Doc?”

  Doc puts his face in his hands. “Oh, God. How long have you been waiting to say that?”

  “...Uh, a while.”

  “I’m actually embarrassed for you.” Doc scratches his nose. “So, I see you guys have the situation under control.”

  “Maybe. Right now, our concern is another attack. The rays and that Hroza. I think we can push them back. But we’re gonna need to go on the offensive. Soon. I’m hoping we’ll get a shot at daybreak.”

  “And, ah...” Doc points to himself. “What’re the chances me and the men and the dogs can get a ride outta here? Maybe back to where the aliens aren’t trying to slaughter us.”

  “Yeahhhh...” Miller crosses his arms. “I’m not bullshitting you, Doc. But I can’t. Not yet. For one, I can’t spare the troops. And I can’t spare the equipment. The only vehicle with the space to move you and the dogs is one of the Chinooks. I’m not handing one of those over. I need its assault capabilities.”

  “Then what if we borrowed a Humvee.”

  “Again, I can’t spare the equipment.”

  “Then what if me and the dogs just kinda fucked off?”

  “Then you’d kinda be a dick.”

  Doc arches his eyebrows. “Fair point.” He lights a cigarette. Offers one to Miller.

  Miller shakes his head. “Thanks, but I’ve got enough problems to worry about without adding lung cancer to the list.”

  “Bet you’re real fun at parties. So what’s the plan?”

  “Mostly what I said. We lock the base down tight. It would be stupid to assume they won’t attack again. Once we’re sure we can hold it, then we go after them.”

  “What about the pilots?”

  “The two blue bastards? They want their ship back. And given what they’ve said, I want them to have their ship back too. Hard enough fighting the alien shitheads in the middle of nowhere. Imagine if they went for New York? Los Angeles? Christ. Imagine if they got anywhere except here.”

  “That would be bad. But are your wonderful superiors really gonna let em leave? How much’d that ship be worth to you?”

  “Contrary to a lot of the crap in books and movies, we’d rather not piss off the highly advanced race of aliens.” Miller smirks again. “And I’d rather have allies in high places. Maybe they’ll leave us some wonderful technology. We’d love to have the ship. But we’d rather see it gone if it’s just a hive of insanity.”

  Doc shrugs. “If you say so.”

  “I mean it. That ship was designed to move troops to
a battlefield. It was designed to land somewhere and take over planets. We—” Miller taps Doc’s chest “—are the only things standing in between those bugfucks and global annihilation.

  “I want those pilots back on their ship. I need those pilots back on their ship.

  “You get me?”

  Doc blows smoke through his nose. “Yeah.” He tosses his smoked smoke to the snowy ground. “Yeah. All right.”

  Fuck.

  * * *

  “We goin home?” Fiske asks when Doc walks back inside.

  Doc shakes his head.

  Swift says, “Shit.”

  Doc rubs Rubin’s head. “Oh, and it gets better.”

  37.

  Lieutenant Miller talks to the Spec Ops troops under camo netting in front of the Wiseman Airport office building. Forty-five absolute badasses. Snake eaters. He tells em about the ship. And he’ll introduce em to the pilots later. But most just wanna know: What’s the plan? And what the fuck is going on?

  Question of the year.

  The blue guys are the good guys. Bugs and Wile E.

  They crashed here carrying an army that was supposed to go somewhere else.

  The burrowers are centipede, kinda smart fuckers. Clever. They command other critters. They travel underground so watch your feet.

  And you gotta watch out for the littler centipede fuckers. Cuz they’ll attach themselves to you and turn you into a monster.

  The flytraps are creepy fuckers who eat the dead.

  The spider-squids are dumb fuckers. Bullet bait. But they’ll tear you to shreds.

  The rays are fast flying fuckers piloted by burrowers. Gunships gotta take care of em.

  The Hroza is a big scary sonuvabitch. Don’t know what to do about it yet.

  Miller says, “And Fort Fumble’s got its hand up our ass. They want the aliens and they want the ship. But they don’t want it so bad that the pilots will get twitchy and lay waste to most of the continent. I’ve seen what the pilots’ weapons can do—just the little ones they’ve got on their hands—and I advised General Anderson that pissing them off is not a good idea.”

  The operators listen to Miller, but keep their eyes on Bugs. They mutter among themselves. Their thoughts are loud. Funny gangly thing. Blue and skinny like a dead dick. I bet we could take em and then take their ship.

  Bugs stiffens.

  Miller sees it and steps in front of the alien. “Eyes on me. Try not to even think nasty shit about our visitors.” He envisions Ackerman’s head turning to dust. “They can be a bit touchy.”

  Bugs straightens his arm. The blaster on his palm glows. Operators aim their weapons at him. He ends up in the crosshairs of SCARs and M4s and HK417s.

  Miller holds his hand up. “Don’t. Fucking. Shoot.”

  Bugs says, “Down. Now.”

  Miller ducks. Soldiers part like the Red Sea.

  Bugs aims over their heads. Opens fire. A beam of blue death slashes through the camo netting. Streaks toward some target nobody can see in the darkness. Bugs lowers his arm and watches. There’s an explosion in the sky. They can see the black silhouette of a ray flyer as it shatters and careens into the forest, screaming in its biomechanical voice.

  The operators are impressed. So’s Miller.

  “Was scout,” Bugs says. “They are figuring out what do next.”

  Miller says, “So what do we do next?”

  A soldier in the crowd says, “He’s askin the fuckin alien what we oughta do...”

  “Yeah, well, so would I,” replies another. “You see that shit? Fwap. No more bad guy.”

  “Problem I have is we’re still assuming these are the good guys.”

  Miller says, “If they aren’t, we’re doomed anyway.”

  38.

  Swift scratches his head. How long ago did the ship crash? More than twenty-four hours ago. Right? Yeah. Cuz the ship crashed. They hiked up the mountain. Came back to Sugar Tits. Waited out that night with the monsters. And now they’re waiting out another night. So...Forty-eight hours.

  Or something.

  He stares at his calloused hands. There’s still bits of blood under his nails.

  Jesus Christ.

  Doc says, “So here’s the deal: The pilots need to get back to their ship. Our wonderful military—”

  “The dudes who won’t let us go home,” Fiske says. Spits. Rubs his itchy leg.

  “The military says they need us. Or a couple of us. Since we know the area. We’re supposed to sneak the pilots back to the ship while they hold the front line here.”

  Swift says, “That’s crazy.”

  Doc nods. “Yep. Idea is that a small team with the pilots can avoid too much attention. We’d buttonhook. Go around the trouble area. Come in north of the ship while Miller and his guys are causing mayhem south, drawing the alien forces out.”

  Swift shakes his head. “Still crazy. It’ll take most of the goddamn day if we’re supposed to walk all the way around their landing zone. Area. Whateverthefuck it is.”

  Doc tilts his head. “Walk? What is this ‘walking’ you speak of?” He turns to Fiske. “Greenhorn, it’s your time to shine.”

  Fiske sits up on the couch. “What’re you talking about? I can’t go anywhere on this leg.”

  “Won’t have to if you’re flying. We know you were a pilot in the Army. Or almost one. You got kicked out. Signed on with Northern Light for grunt work.” Doc lights a cigarette. “Why were you booted?”

  “The fuck does it matter?”

  “I wanna know.”

  “Why doesn’t one of Miller’s guys fly it? I’ll just hang back.”

  Doc takes a drag. “Only thing more precious to Miller than his toys is his men. Can’t say I disagree with that stance. He’s willing to let us borrow a chopper. But he wants his Spec Ops boys here. And remember, the whole plan’s to save the planet.” He puffs out a cloud of smoke. “So yeah. Curious. Why’d you get the boot. Kill someone? Fuck a superior officer’s wife?”

  Fiske frowns. “No, man. Nothing like that.”

  “Then just spill it. I wanna know who’s gonna ferry me across the River Styx.”

  “It’s fuckin awful and it’s embarrassing and sounds nuts—”

  “Nuts? We’re repelling an alien invasion in the woods. Just spit it out. You’re my goddamn pilot. Why should I trust you when the military didn’t?”

  Fiske and Doc lock eyes.

  Swift hands Fiske a half-empty bottle of Jameson.

  Fiske takes a pull. “Rape. I got framed for rape.”

  That shuts everyone the hell up.

  Fiske says, “I had... Shit. I had four months left. Fort Rucker, Alabama. I’d been seeing one of the other candidates. We’d been together like maybe two months before it all went wrong. Chick’s name was Aurora. Cool, right? Bitchin name. Smart girl. Tough. Pretty brunette.” He takes another pull of whiskey. “Now... Man, you’re not supposed to be doing what we were doing. Not sure what they expected. Girls and boys together. So. Right before we were found out, instead of risking disciplinary, she told everyone I’d forced myself on her.”

  Swift says, “And you’d had consensual sex, so...”

  “Yeah,” Fiske says. “She was on the pill. We didn’t bother with condoms. And why raise more suspicion by leaving evidence around?” Fiske stares at his feet. “Anyway, they didn’t quite believe her. I know I didn’t do anything as disgusting as that. I had witnesses to clear me. But, man. Last thing the military wanted was another one of these media freak shows, where they look like they’ve got a ‘rape culture’ on their campuses... What’s horrible is, they do. It’s a huge goddamn problem. But I didn’t do anything.

  “Doesn’t matter. They showed me the door. Dishonorable discharge. But no criminal charges.” Fiske casts a sad smile. He throws up his hands. “Now I’m here. Up this goddamn mountain.” He looks to Doc. “Yeah, I can fly the fuckin chopper.”

  Doc says, “I’m sorry. I really am.”

  Fiske shakes his head. “
Well, now you know. So let’s drop it.”

  Doc nods.

  Swift looks to Gordy. “Sorta makes your lady problems seem quaint.” Then he taps Doc. “What about your dogs?”

  “Been goin over that in my head.” Doc bites his lip. “Can’t bring em on the chopper. Furballs’d probably fall out getting curious about somethin a hundred feet below.”

  “You gonna leave them?”

  “I asked Miller. He said he’d post someone with em. More than a few of the guys are animal lovers. I made him promise he’d keep em safe.” Doc looks to the back room where the surviving huskies are sleeping. He strokes Rubin’s head. “Man, I haven’t been away from the dogs more than an hour in years.”

  Rubin’s tongue waggles.

  Doc says, “I come back—If I come back—and any of the dogs are missing, I’ll kill him. Miller. Fuckin aliens’ll be the least of his concerns.”

  Swift says, “Rubin’ll keep the dogs in line. They’ll be fine.”

  Doc cocks an eyebrow. “You think I’m gonna leave Rubin behind?”

  * * *

  Miller walks in to see five angry faces—including Rubin. He clears his throat. “You know why you’re doing this.”

  “Doesn’t mean we have to like it,” Doc says.

  “Hell, I don’t like it.” Miller crosses his arms. “I think this is our best shot. I don’t want to split my force up. We know they want to wipe us out here. My operators can handle it. But stretched too thin, I’m not sure we can.”

  “We get it.”

  “So what do you need from me?”

  Swift hefts the Stihl. “Gas.”

  “Ammo,” Doc says. “Our rifles pack a big punch. My Henry .45-70 and Swift’s Browning BAR. Maybe Gordy wants an M4 or a SCAR, but frankly none of us are trained with those weapons. Don’t wanna take any chances. And if we’re fighting bugs in tight spaces, I want a flamethrower.”

  Miller smirks, “Yeah I asked General Anderson to make sure we had a few, given that these things are basically an insect plague.” He looks to Fiske. “You got any demands?”

  Fiske says, “Pepto-Bismol.”

  * * *

  Gordy won’t tell the other men, but he’s excited. Giddy. Like a little kid.