by C. W Tickner
Then it was over. The two Aylens turned away and walked through the narrow gap between the buildings, carrying Tess and Troy with them.
Chapter 14
Our ship will drop first and I must admit I’m feeling nervous. Who knows what we will find down there. I have been assigned a small protective team who will keep an eye out for me as I explore and record what I find. But will they be enough? Our scans have been disturbing.
‘No!’ Harl shouted as he broke into a run.
Dana grabbed his arm and pulled him to a stop, almost yanking it from the socket.
‘She’s right,’ Damen said as he came up beside them. ‘There’s nothing you can do.’
‘It’s her fault they were out there,’ Harl said, anger flaring up in him.
Dana said nothing, but hung her head and let go of his arm. She looked around as if to gauge which direction to leave.
Harl knew it was not completely true, but since they had left Orbital everything had gone wrong. First the ship had crashed and now Troy and Tess had been taken. All the Aylen had to do was go for a short stroll across the town and Troy and Tess might as well be on the far side of the planet. It would take weeks to find them, if at all, and by then Orbital would be sucked dry.
Dana had made up her mind and stalked towards the wall of vegetation in the opposite direction of the ship.
‘I’m sorry,’ Harl said and she stopped. ‘We need you with us.’
She turned back and scowled at him. Then, as if disliking the fact she had changed her mind she nodded, spun around and headed for the ship.
‘Best get back,’ Harl said. ‘I doubt Kane’s going to be happy.’
‘What?’ Kane fumed, once Harl explained what had happened. He whipped around on Damen. ‘Why did you attack?’ he asked throwing his hands up. ‘Why do you always have to attack!’ He was turning pink as he faced up to Damen, who towered over him as Kane jabbed a finger into bigger man’s chest. ‘Your obsession with hunting a bloody Aylen is what has got Tess killed.’
‘She’s not dead,’ Damen said, his beard bristling at the accusation.
‘She might as well be!’ Kane cried, clenching his fist and turning from Damen, ‘all because of a hunt.’
‘We almost got it,’ Damen said.
Harl groaned.
Kane spun around incredulous. ‘You almost…’ His hand shot out instinctively and cracked Damen across the chin.
The bigger man stumbled, caught off guard. Kane looked down at his skeletal hands as though not believing their audacity and then back to Damen, who roared and hauled him up by his collar and drew a fist back. Kane kicked out hard, breaking free of Damen’s grip and fumbled in a pocket as Damen shoulder-barged him to the damp ground. He straddled the smaller man, ready to pummel his fists down on Kane.
Harl had seen enough, but as he moved to intercede, Damen froze in place and started to shake. It looked like he was having fit. Kane twisted free and Harl could see a small tubular device in one of his hands. Kane tucked it into a pocket before patting himself down checking for injuries as Damen writhed on the ground.
‘What have you done?’ Harl asked, wondering what weapon Kane possessed that allowed him to freeze someone in place.
‘He will be fine,’ Kane said, prodding Damen with his foot, ‘Maybe a little off for a while, but nothing the brutish thug does not deserve.’ When he saw Harl’s look he went on. ‘Electricity, Harl. A stun gun.’
He drew out the stubby cylinder and held it up for Harl to see. It was patched together from odd electric components that Harl had no name for. Kane pressed a button on it and one end crackled menacingly as a strip of lightning flashed between two metal prongs.
Kane slipped it back in his pocket as Damen groaned and tried to stand. His legs failed him and he collapsed down again, staring hatred and surprise up at Kane.
‘The feeling will return soon,’ Kane said. ‘You don’t think I walk around without protection?’
Damen growled and finally stood, his jaw clenched under his braided beard, ready for more action.
Dana had been watching the exchange with amused interest. She stepped between them.
‘What’s that noise?’ she asked, looking up between the buildings at the strip of blue sky in between.
Damen got to his feet, glowering at Kane, but scanned the horizon as a droning sound grew in the distance. Rocks shifted around them and dead branches snapped and fell from the tall bushes as vibrations shook the ground. The noise echoed between the buildings, reverberating off the dark grey walls.
Harl noticed something flying through the sky in an arc towards them.
‘Get down!’ he cried, jumping aside as a huge branch crashed through the grass stalks. It ripped the nearest trunks apart and rolled to a stop in a thick clump of dead leaves.
The towering grass stalks surrounding them were thrashed aside as a continual barrage of debris rained into the foliage. Rocks and lumps of wood punched holes through the leaves above and threw up splatters of mud as the projectiles struck the wet ground around them.
Harl looked in the direction they’d come from and saw something eating away at the horizon above the grass. He couldn’t understand what was happening and then realised that some kind of giant Aylen machine was approaching them, crashing through the forest as it threw out a storm of debris in all directions.
A silver box, forty metres high stretched the width of the Aylen walkway between the buildings. A hollow section at the bottom was alive with hundreds of metal blades that churned on a cylinder choked with shredded plants and spotted with blood.
‘It eats the forest,’ Damen said as the haze of smoke around it parted and the blades slowed to a stop as it neared the clearing.
A red laser beam expanded from a hole on top and stretched across the clearing, sweeping the muddy ground until it reached their side. Harl felt his clothing heat up as the beam rose over his body.
Dana hissed, swiping at it with a pair of knives as Kane crouched and covered his head.
Damen stood patiently as the beam passed above him to the plants behind.
The machine beeped, shunted forwards, and sped up towards them, the blades inside starting their daemonic spin as it trundled towards the empty ground.
‘The door,’ Harl said, seeing a gap underneath the door into the Aylen building. It was their only escape.
The machine rattled into the clearing and spat out clods of earth and huge rocks as it headed towards them.
‘Get under it,’ Harl yelled at the others.
Damen was knocked back as a rock smashed into his shoulder. He growled and ran on, determined to stay ahead of the machine. Dana dodged left and right, narrowly missing a boulder as it tumbled towards them and exploded into smaller fragments.
Kane stopped running and Harl feared he’d been hit. But he seemed fine. He stooped and lifted a small metal panel off one of the crushed tanks and used it as a shield. Harl ran behind him with his head down, thankful for the cover.
The noise became nearly unbearable as the machine ate its way forward. Thick smoke clogged Harl’s throat as they veered right towards the safety of the gap under the door. The wind whipped up from the spinning blades and, when Harl peered around Kane’s shield, he saw the black abyss of the machine looming over them through the haze of debris. A stone scraped his cheek, drawing instant blood. Stinging pulsed through his face as pea-sized fragments pricked his body.
The machine bore down on them just as Dana was the first to roll under the gap. Harl couldn’t see Damen anymore in the rain of mud and twigs. Kane was just in front and dropped to his knees as he began to crawl under the door.
Harl slid under after him, his eyes blurring as the wind from the machine brought tears to his eyes. He rolled through and stood up the far side. Damen slid out seconds after and crouched there breathing hard.
Heart pounding, Harl watched as darkness engulfed the other side of the door. The shadow spread along the base where the gap showed and then
moved on. Daylight returned. The machine was gone.
The noise faded and, as they turned, relief turned to horror as they stared up at the face of an Aylen towering over them.
Chapter 15
Nearly one thousand souls are on board. Doctors, engineers, agriculture specialists, the list goes on. Most have cross training as soldiers or a second profession. Once we have landed, there will be no coming back up. I expect Delta’s second ship to join us within a day of touchdown. The other ships will land with their own agendas around the planet.
Harl had thought he’d lost most of his fear of the Aylen, but he froze with the others at the sight of it, and the childish terror returned twofold. The giant face was fifty metres away, its pallid cheeks squashed against the floor. The top of its head was bald, like all Aylen, and some of its skin was flaking off like thick wallpaper.
They stood still, waiting for something to happen, and as the seconds ticked away Harl tried force his way through the fear and take in what he was actually seeing.
The Aylen was lying on the rough grey floor like a drunk slumbering in the middle of the road, but this drunk was the size of a hill. Its eyes were shut and its foul breath washed over them in waves as they stood paralysed. A stream of yellow blood seeped from under the face and wound its way across the dark ground to pool in a huge yellow puddle about thirty paces to their left.
‘It’s hurt,’ Kane said, breaking the silence, his voice a dry whisper.
The Aylen’s ashen face was swollen and bent out of shape. Tears had leaked out of its eyes to clear trails through the blood covering its massive cheeks.
‘If we can hit it in the eye,’ Damen said, raising his short sword, ‘we can finish the job.’
‘No,’ Harl and Kane said together.
‘Shh,’ Dana hissed, but it was too late.
One of the eyelids opened and a yellow pupil flickered to life. The second eye opened faster and both dilated eyes contracted as it focused on the four of them. A confused look crossed its features as the Aylen took them in sideways on.
‘Run!’ Harl shouted. His legs felt, heavy but panic pulsed through him as he spun and ran for the door.
A deep bassy rumble broke like a wave behind them. Harl risked a glance. The room was blocked by a mass of bulky limbs as the Aylen heaved itself up. He crouched as they neared the gap and then slid under the door on his knees. Damen was already through and he thrust out a meaty hand to drag Harl up.
The four of them stumbled out, hoping to make for the undergrowth, but stopped in shock. A bare strip of land was ahead of them, not the clearing, just a vast empty… nothing. The soil had been tilled flat, as if someone had been preparing the land for planting while they were inside. Nothing was left but coal black soil. In front of them and on their right, the land was a clear flat expanse that stretched to the end of the two buildings.
The rear face of the machine that had chased them under the door moments before was on their left. It glinted silver in the sunlight, but it seemed dead to the world, or just idle with nothing left to do now that it had ploughed up the landscape and digested everything.
They sprinted across the bare ground towards it and ducked under the machine’s halted blades, then scrambled out on the other side and found the ship only metres from the machine’s bladed maw.
‘It stopped in front of the ship,’ Kane said. ‘Thank goodness.’
‘Did it see us?’ Harl asked, bending over double and straining to hear a distant tread over his own ragged breathing.
A terrifying roar gave them the answer.
‘It’s angry,’ Dana said, dashing into the ship.
Harl led Kane and Damen as they raced after her. They made for the control room.
‘It’s not ready,’ Kane said when they arrived. He crashed down into a seat and began punching controls on the monitor.
Harl read the word ignition as it popped up on the screen and Kane slapped a palm down on the panel.
The ship rumbled as the engines strained to fire up, but everything sputtered and whirred down to a dead silence. Kane cursed viciously and tried again. The cockpit shuddered, then the engines died. Kane sighed as the steel floor shook to the unmistakable beat of an Aylen’s stride.
‘Outside,’ Damen said, crouching behind a seat as if it might spot them through the cockpit window.
Harl could see it through the window himself. The giant towered over the ship as it stepped around to the front. A puzzled look crossed its face, changing to a cruel smile as it bent over and examined the wreck. Its wrinkled hands reached out, blocking the window as it lifted the entire ship effortlessly and rocked the vessel from side to side like some child’s plaything.
Damen stumbled for the door, gripping the consoles around the edge of the room for support.
‘Where are you going?’ Kane asked, holding on to the screen in front of him.
‘Giving it a taste of this,’ Damen said as he cocked a rifle that he’d grabbed from a storage locker. It slipped from his hands as the ship tilted and discharged a blast at the ceiling. Blue light lit the small space and sparks rained down from the roof, narrowly missing Kane.
‘Idiot!’ Kane yelled.
The Aylen’s hand moved from the window and a bright yellow eye peered in at the cockpit.
Seeing the Aylen treating the ship like a child’s toy sent a surge of anger through Harl. The room rattled as the vessel was dumped on a solid surface and Harl decided it was time for action. He didn’t want to wait for the inevitable crushing death that was to come. Or maybe the giant would shake them to death and then eat them like a starving man might an insect?
He headed for the exit, grabbing Damen’s fallen rifle as he strode past.
‘Hey,’ Damen said, tugging his short sword from his belt as he ran after Harl. ‘You’re not going out there without me.’
‘I won’t stay here to be crushed and shaken to death,’ Harl said, taking the corridor that led to the armoury.
‘What are you going to do?’ Damen asked as the others followed.
‘I’m going to kill it,’ Harl said. He kicked the armoury door open and marched in, then grabbed a second rifle from a rack brimming with weapons and strapped a belt of ammunition clips around his waist.
‘Yes,’ Damen said.
‘Oh no,’ Kane muttered.
‘We can kill that thing,’ Harl said, slinging his sword over a shoulder, ‘the same as we did when we left the planet before. It can be done.’
He looked at their faces, Damen was smiling but Kane and Dana were avoiding his gaze,’ he said. ‘All my life I have been ruled by these giants. They killed my parents and countless others. We have enough equipment here for a chance to survive, but if we have to die here then I want it to remember us. I want it to fear the small people. I want it to see what four humans can do and then live with the knowledge that one day thousands will rise up against them and threaten their very existence.’
Dana nodded, grabbed a rifle from the rack, and tightened the belt of knives on her thigh. She gave the strap a hard tug and jammed a magazine in the gun, then nodded.
Kane hesitated.
‘You want to get Tess back?’ Damen said, picking up a pair of pistols from a box on the table. He flipped them over in his hand and offered the grips to Kane. ‘You know she’s worth it.’
Kane looked from Damen’s determined face to the weapons. He breathed deep, then clasped one in each hand.
Damen’s smile widened as Kane stood straighter.
‘Here,’ Dana said, throwing open the double doors of a high metal locker recessed in the wall. Rows of armour plating lined the three shelves inside. The top was stuffed with helmets and shoulder pieces. The lower shelves were crammed with clip on chest plates and shin protection.
Kane slipped around Harl as he took shoulder and shin plates, and thrust his hand down into a battered plastic box on the floor of the locker.
‘Fascinating,’ he said, picking out a grenade from the heap withi
n.
They raced from the armoury and only stopped when they reached the ramp room that led out of the ship. Everyone was out of breath.
Harl peeked down from the rear ramp of the dropship and found himself looking at the inside of an Aylen room. The ship was on a metal table set to one side of the vast interior with the Aylen stood at the edge of the table looking down at the vessel. It hadn’t spotted his helmeted head pop out and duck back again, so he turned to Damen, Kane, and Dana. They filled the corridor in their bulky armour, but all three had a look of determination that he was proud of. Dana was twice her normal size in the light metal plating while Kane looked almost comical in all the armour. If it wasn’t for the serious look in Kane’s eyes, Harl was sure Damen would have laughed.
‘It’s out there,’ Harl said. ‘At the edge of the table.’
‘Then we run,’ Damen said. ‘Don’t stop until we’re in range.’
Kane’s voice was a trembling whisper from behind the bearded man.
‘I don’t think we should-’
‘Go!’ Damen called, cutting him off.
Harl leapt from the ramp down on to the Aylen table. His armour clattered as he led them out into the open and the four of them rushed forward, side by side. Damen roared, storming ahead with a rifle in either hand. Dana screamed beside the hunter as Kane clasped his pistols and struggled to keep pace in the unfamiliar armour. Harl had his sword in one hand and a rifle in the other, holding the blade high as his legs propelled him towards death.
The Aylen’s huge, craggy face looked down at them. It was staring straight at Harl and all he wanted was to sink the blade deep into its grey flesh and take revenge for the dead soldiers outside.
The Aylen scowled as the group charged to the edge of the table. Harl fired up at the evil face as it waited for them to get closer. He would show the Aylen they could at least damage it. Damen cackled as he fired both rifles. Blue shots peppered the Aylen’s face and body, and it let loose a deafening roar, waving an arm in front to block the fire.
