A man, one eye closed with a livid bruise swollen so badly, the skin looked tight enough to split. His other eye, white and clear, blinked at her with undisguised excitement. He babbled something at her, rocking forward as if he was trying to get up off the ground. She stepped inside, seeing an alien hidden out of sight. The being lunged forward and slapped the barrel of her rifle.
Monet let it go, tipping her attacker off balance since he put so much effort into the slap, he likely expected there to be resistance where there was none. She stepped sideways, letting the alien bend at the waist, and drew the pistol with her right hand. She didn’t fire a shot, simply reached up high and clubbed the grip of the gun at the base of his skull with a wet crack. He slumped, out cold, and Monet shot the Overseer in the head, then holstered the gun. She returned with a knife in her hand, which she used to cut the bonds.
The man rubbed his wrists, rolling both shoulders in obvious pain after sitting for too long with his hands bound behind him. He said something neither of them understood, and when they didn’t respond, he staggered past them to point and shout at a series of huge vats.
“Guess it’s time for the fireworks,” Monet said as she unslung the straps of her pack and pulled out small charges of explosives with wires and little white boxes attached.
“Wait, we’re not going to put the poison the chemicals?” Lina asked, producing the flask from her own pack. In response, Monet pointed at the unconscious guard leaking blood onto the grimy floor.
“Does it matter if we’re subtle?” she asked, a devilish smirk betraying the fact that she appeared to actually be enjoying herself.
The man they had freed tugged at Lina’s arm speaking Mandarin rapidly as he tried to gain her attention.
“What? The chemicals? You want these?” she asked, offering him the flasks, which he took eagerly, running away in a different direction.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Monet said, piling three of the miniature bombs into Lina’s arms and leading the way to the vats. “Put them on the valves,” she said, “and hide them like this,” she explained, demonstrating what she meant with the first one and spinning the dial on the small white box all the way around.
The guy with the swollen eye returned before they’d finished, this time with the old guy in tow.
“He wants to tell you he is Fan, and that we must leave this place,” the old man said. He turned to the other Chinese man and the two of them exchanged a turbocharged conversation, which was cut short by incoming gunfire.
“There another way outta here?” Monet yelled, bringing her gun up to rattle off a long stream of bullets aimed at the door where the guard’s reinforcements were trying to come through. Fan jogged from the room, acting like he knew where he was going, and the others followed.
“Seriously? In there?” Lina asked when they’d piled into another room and Monet had shoved a file cabinet onto its side to block the door. She was staring into the dark maw of the ventilation system vent and weighing up which she’d prefer: inky blackness and claustrophobia or a firefight with traitors to their own species.
Monet shoved her unceremoniously inside before following, blessedly only having to crawl for twenty paces before the next grate was pushed free and they spilled out into a room with an emergency exit. Monet didn’t hesitate. She kicked open the door and scanned with her rifle, and when nothing shot at her from the darkness beyond, she ran, yelling at the others to follow her and not stopping until she reached the perimeter fence to cut it and escape into the ruins of the city.
At the same time, a series of distant, dull explosions resonated through the ground beneath their feet.
Chapter 34
Cole
The massive Gateway in Detroit hummed and vibrated like it had stored up so much static electricity, it was fit to burst.
The first sparkle of lightning in the center of the enormous ring flashed blue and purple before sputtering out to leave a hint of a sickly yellow color in the eye of anyone watching before it buzzed louder and exploded in a riot of colors like a crackling rainbow. The nose of the huge cargo vessel emerged, inching through the portal between two worlds—or at least between Earth and the nothingness between there and where the they’d so recently been.
Slowly, each transport container emerged one after the other until the rear of the ship stretched free. Soon the entire thing surged ponderously aside to allow the outgoing shipments, which were stacked in a neat outbound convoy ready to go, their turn to use the Gateway.
Loud, electric bangs echoed around the facility and the light from the portal flickered dangerously until, without any other warning, it simply blinked out of existence to leave the rear two-thirds of the outgoing ship suspended in mid-air. It faltered and slammed to the ground to shatter the foundations of the portal device and topple it in pieces.
Cole turned from the viewscreen in disbelief before turning to his half-conscious companion and letting out a sigh of disbelief.
“Well… that went better than expected.”
“Huh?” Soares gasped, eyes flying wide open and swollen hands reaching on instinct for a weapon until the agony of his burned flesh reminded him not to use them. His back arched and his breath hissed through clenched teeth. His eyes locked on to Cole’s and consumed him with an intensity he couldn’t control, tears rolling down his dry cheeks until his panting breaths subsided.
“What… happened?”
“We made it through the Gateway to Detroit,” Cole reported. He knew it was Detroit instantly as the images of the facility were burned into his mind as the backdrop to his uncle’s murder. “Another ship went to go through, but the Gate closed on it. Cut the head off the ship. Literally.”
“Good,” Soares spat vehemently, the pain in his hands bringing his temper directly to the surface. “Bastards can… burn…”
“It gets better,” Cole told him with a smile. “The Gateway’s destroyed. The damaged ship crashed on it.”
Soares said nothing, making Cole peer closely at him, but the older man had lapsed into unconsciousness. In their medical gear, at least the small amount they had taken with them, there was nothing to treat severe burns, so Cole had done all that he could, even going without water to try and keep the damaged flesh cool. That water had evaporated now, and the only thing he could do for Soares was to administer the little shots of painkillers.
The first time he’d removed the safety cap and stabbed one of the thin needles into Soares’ skin to squeeze the medicine into his flesh, he’d seen the calm wash over his features.
The ship jolted unnaturally, like it was making an unscheduled maneuver, and Cole’s internal alarm bells went off. He wished he still had the Tracker then, and not just for its ability to interpret the ship systems, but because he’d seen up close what one of the machines could do to the Overseers.
Somewhere in one of the cramped compartments was the broken body of the alien that the drone had killed, and if he thought the things smelled bad when they were alive, then they had nothing on the dead version.
The hauler settled down to land, and Cole guessed they were being stopped by the aliens trying to determine what the hell had happened to their portal.
“Well,” Cole said as he stood up and arranged the weapons over his body. “Time to go to work. Again.” He helped Soares to his feet, who was somehow able to stand and observe the younger man.
“We gave them hell, right, Soares?” Cole asked.
“Ain’t done yet, kid,” he answered with only the slightest slurring of his words. Cole adjusted the strap of the shotgun over his right shoulder so it didn’t impede his ability to work Soares’ rifle slung over his chest. Both weapons were ready in case the one in his hands didn’t work, which he hoped with all of his will that it would.
“You’re right,” Cole said as alien sounds began to echo down the ship. “It’s not over.” Cole raised the alien gun in two hands ahead of him and made for the nearest external door, intent on getting them both out
of there or die in the process, taking as many of them out with him as he could.
Soares wasn’t entirely right, of course. The job was done, but the mopping up might take a little time.
The bastards were cut off from reinforcements, they’d lost almost all of their slave labor to rebuild the Gateway, and if Lina was successful, they’d be symptomatic and starting to die off in days or weeks anyway. The job was done, at least the part of it that they could influence, and the only thing left now was to escape or make a point that others might learn about.
Making a point like that meant making a mess, and a mess was exactly what Cole was in a mood for.
He hit the flashing icon on the door control panel, correctly assuming it was some kind of emergency exit. The door dropped from the fuselage to form a ramp, unveiling three of the skinnier types of aliens he’d seen doing the more mechanical jobs. These three combined were likely as muscled and heavy as the one who’d attacked them on the ship, and their matching expressions of shock and terror filled him with an anger that shielded him from all fear.
He pulled the trigger on the alien gun to send a fizzing ball of energy at the nearest stinking birdbrain, causing a broken mess of thin limbs. A high-pitched squeal filled the air in the spaces between the ships ending the second Cole shot again and blasted a burning chunk of another alien’s fleshy abdomen as it tried to turn and run.
Cole stepped out onto the ramp and aimed at the third, who was just standing there awaiting its fate. Cole delivered it with the tug of the trigger.
Heat and electricity exploded above his head as incoming fire missed him. He flinched and ducked low, sending another fat bolt at a group of larger aliens rushing them from the nearest building. Soares yelled something and moved like a blur in Cole’s peripheral vision—probably telling him to duck or take cover or something—but he ignored the man and started striding toward the approaching aliens like he was bulletproof. He fired again, twice more, but none of the shots hit them just as theirs missed him.
He dropped to one knee and rested the alien gun on the ground before lifting Soares’ rifle into his shoulder and flicking the catch with his thumb to select automatic. He squeezed off bursts of bullets, aiming low to the ground so his misses would graze the concrete and ricochet upwards.
As the first magazine ran dry, his hands moved automatically to reload, turning the weapon slightly by the grip to snatch out the spent one and replenish it. He jammed in the replacement and charged the weapon to start spraying longer bursts until the refill was spent in three pulls of the trigger.
The aliens fell, long legs shattered and torn by bullets and shards of concrete, ending their attack as their bony fingers dropped weapons and clutched at their injuries. Cole stood, not bothering to reload the rifle, and picked up the alien gun from the ground in front of him. He walked forward, swinging his right shoulder to bring the shotgun into grabbing range, and switched his grip on the stolen blaster so he held one destructive close-quarters weapon in each hand.
Years of fear and hatred, his entire life of pain and loss poured out of him then. He killed them. Executed unarmed, injured beings without mercy. He put them down like cockroaches, like the way they’d treated him, his family, his whole god damned species, and he didn’t care.
He heard shouting when the automatic shotgun ran dry, and in the absence of the sharp booms the weapon issued, he realized the sound came from his own mouth. He dropped the shotgun on the strap and felt no pain as the hot barrel smacked into his kneecap, bringing the alien gun into both hands and swinging it around in search of anything else to kill.
But no enemies remained.
He could see a lot of activity around the pile of sparking rubble that used to be the Gateway, and in the distance, more of the ugly creatures ran toward it, but in all the chaos and confusion, they didn’t spot him.
His senses returned to him then, and with them, an icy shot of fear resonated through his spine and into his gut. He turned and ran to where he’d left Soares beside the ramp of the ship, watching in horror as the open doorway above his injured and heavily medicated mentor filled with the shape of another alien.
It didn’t aim a gun, and Cole braced himself as it drew a long, curved blade from a belt it wore and crouched to stalk toward Soares.
“Nooo,” Cole bawled, aiming deliberately to the left of the doorway and triggering off a blast of energy in the hope of distracting it just long enough to intervene. The thing flinched at the impact of the shot, looking up at Soares before turning to Cole and sneering.
It turned back to cut open the man on the ground, but Soares was gone, clambered up onto the ramp in time to stamp out a boot sole and connect with his attacker’s leg.
Had Soares’ opponent been human, the blow would’ve destabilized them, maybe even dropped them to one or both knees. Instead, the joint popped forward in a way that turned Cole’s stomach, even though he was still two dozen paces away.
The alien staggered, long arms twirling in the air as if it couldn’t compute how to balance like that, then dropped onto its side to breathe in and let out a long, shrill screech of agony. Cole neared, seeing Soares almost drunkenly trying to fumble a pistol into his cracked and bleeding hands to end the thing. Cole got there first, not even meeting the alien’s eyes before he aimed the stolen weapon at the alien soldier and blasted it.
“We need to leave,” Cole insisted, seeing Soares stooping awkwardly to try and pick up the gun he’d dropped. “Now!” Cole insisted, reaching up and dragging the man away from the ship.
“Need a way out… need a way out,” he repeated to himself as he walked fast and scanned the almost deserted compound for inspiration.
Where the hell are they all? he thought. This place was crawling with them last time.
He didn’t have long to think about their good luck, only enough time to take full advantage of it. A line of smaller alien ships, like the ones he’d seen coming through on their outward journey, sat in neat, uniform lines near a large building.
Why the hell didn’t I learn to fly? He cursed himself pointlessly, like a skill that complex was simply a matter of effort and a couple weeks’ practice.
“Come on,” Cole said again, surging forward with purpose and half dragging Soares with him. They reached the thing he’d seen, a hovercar seemingly abandoned by the ship parking lot, and piled Soares inside.
“Buckle up,” he said, repeating a phrase he’d heard someone else use and guessed he found it to be the appropriately heroic thing to say right then. Realizing his stupidity, he spent a few precious seconds fastening the straps for the man who couldn’t use his hands. He tried not to look at the bulging flesh that seeped a mixture of blood and sickly yellow fluid between the worst of the burns.
The mechanisms weren’t difficult to work out. Cole retrieved his tablet and jammed it against the control panel to give him a map to reference, pointed the nose in the right direction, and blew straight through the fence, barely able to believe that they were still alive.
Chapter 35
Alec
The destruction was palpable. They’d won, and Alec hardly knew what to do with himself.
“They might send reinforcements,” Izzy told him, scanning the valley from their perch at the top of the mountains. There was an expansive flat platform above, and their entire fleet sat parked up there, all powered off for the moment. It was silent. No more explosions or rattling of gun fire by the Trackers, no more engines whining and banging around the snowy peaks.
“We won.” Alec mouthed the words again, this time out loud and giving them power. He wished his brother was there to celebrate. He also wanted Tom to see this with his own two eyes, but his uncle was dead, along with so many others.
Izzy turned to him, taking his hands in hers. They were cold, and he stared into her eyes, still surprised that he’d met someone amidst all the chaos over the last few months. Had it really only been that long? Alec struggled to remember that other version of himself, t
he one with his head downcast, shoulders slumped, working for chits in the Detroit facility. He’d overcome that, and now as he stood, overlooking the carnage of their final battle, he stood proudly for every sacrifice made by humanity over the last two and a half decades.
“We did it.” He kissed her. There were a couple hundred people around the platform on the peaks, and some of them catcalled the pair as they locked lips, but he didn’t care. This was a time for celebration, a time for the now.
When they broke, she grinned at him, nodding slowly. “I like this new take-charge kind of Alec.”
Tyrone, the drone worker they’d picked up in Atlanta, sauntered over, his face matching the color of the snow. “I plugged into the computer system on their ships.” He pointed at one of the stolen vessels, and Alec’s stomach dropped at the worried tone in Tyrone’s voice. The man pulled his baseball cap lower over his brow and waved them near. “You’d better see this.”
Dexter Lambert stood by the alien craft, as did some more familiar faces. Alec greeted Yas, then Marisol. Daniel, Jack’s number one, was nearby too, and Alec gathered them all. “We found something. Come on board with us.”
They followed him up the ramp, their snow-covered boots leaving a mess of melting water and ice chips.
This ship was empty, and the cargo holds had been stripped of shelving for the drones. The aliens had elected to shove them full of ground troops instead, soldiers that now lay freezing and dead in the valley below.
“What is it, Ty?” Izzy asked, but he didn’t reply until they were all crammed into the cockpit.
“I’ve been working on a translation program for years in Atlanta, and I got it to work with the exception of a few bugs a while ago. Only it didn’t operate on our recent ships, because they were onto us. They must have learned about the background program you were piggybacking on, because they changed their parameters,” Tyrone said as his fingers flew over the alien screen.
Rise | Book 3 | Reclamation Page 22
