Assault Troopers

by Vaughn Heppner

A fierce elation filled me. It was impossible to conquer the lander, or it should have been impossible. But why not try? Cortes had conquered Aztec Mexico against impossible odds. If nothing else, I could win this lander, figure out the controls and ram the alien starship. We’d make them feel some pain for trying to annihilate humanity.

  I found out that a sprinting human was faster than a Saurian in a suit. None of the five who had fired at us made it out of the chamber. The last one twitched and flopped in death near the rear exit, with the back of his lizard head a gory ruin. This one possessed a similar hand-weapon on its belt as the first Saurian I’d shot outside. I pried off the weapon. It was similar to a flare gun. I’d need something once I ran out of bullets, so I unzipped my parka and tucked the alien gun against my belt.

  Despite the ruptured outer membrane and storming weather, it stayed hot in here.

  “Scan left, I’ll look right,” I said, meaning once we forced our way through the next membrane.

  “Go,” Rollo said. He understood my meaning.

  We pushed through the membrane and found ourselves in a large corridor going both right and left. There were no Saurians in sight, but a blast of heat and alien stench staggered each of us. The walls weren’t smooth steel, but had fuzzy growths on them like alien moss.

  “The more I learn about Saurians, the more I hate them,” I said.

  “What do we do now?” Rollo asked.

  That was a good question. We had to keep attacking; that was the answer. “Follow me,” I said. I strode right, hurrying along the corridor.

  “Some of the aliens made it into the tanks back in the last chamber,” Rollo said, running after me.

  “I know. We have to find this ship’s control room fast.”

  “You can’t be serious. Did you see the size of this ship? Finding the control room could take hours.”

  “We killed some of them, Rollo. They’re going to want vengeance against us, hard vengeance. The only thing left for you and me is to take down as many of these world destroyers as we can. We’re walking dead men. The sooner you believe that, the better off you’ll be.”

  He grew quiet, and a change came over his face, a grim seriousness. “You’re right. They destroyed twenty cities in atomic fireballs and dusted us with their bio-weapon. I wonder why they beamed us, though, and then sent out a Saurian to talk to us.”

  The answer came a minute later. Loud alarms or klaxons sounded. It made the hairs stir on my neck. We turned right at an intersection and found another gym-sized chamber. This opening lacked a membrane.

  Rows of glass cylinders filled a quarter of the area in back. There were also two bulldozer-sized vehicles. Instead of a blade, each had a backhoe-like crane; and instead of a bucket, the ends possessed a clamp or a lobster-like claw. Each gripped an upright cylinder.

  “Creed,” Rollo said. “Do you see what’s inside those?”

  My mind had focused on the vehicles and the room as I searched for Saurians. Now I glanced at the nearest cylinder. My breath caught in my throat, and a sick feeling welled out from my stomach. A naked man stood in the nearest cylinder. He had his palms pressed against the glass and smacked against it several times. I noticed his face. He had his mouth open and it looked as if he was shouting. The thick glass deadened his voice so I couldn’t hear what the man was saying.

  Seeing this—the Saurians had already been elsewhere on the planet, using their pink rays on others. If I hadn’t overcome the peaceful feeling earlier and killed the lizard on the tank ramp, I’d likely be in a glass tube right now. Both Rollo and I would be moths in a jar.

  I raised my rifle, aiming at the lower part of the cylinder. I was going to shoot the man out of there.

  “Creed!” Rollo shouted in warning. “They’re behind us!”

  I spun around and saw them: three ugly Saurians in some sort of battle armor. These three didn’t wear bubble helmets, but metal things with dark visors. I’d watched enough sci-fi movies to recognize combat suits. These three looked like tiny versions of mech warriors.

  The sight of the naked man in the cylinder filled me with loathing. I thought of Nazi experiments and what these aliens were going to do to us now. To them, we were beasts, just big game animals to hunt and mount back at home. I was going to teach them differently.

  I sprinted for the nearest backhoe-like vehicle. Rollo, I noticed, had already ducked out sight behind one. He’d been closer to them.

  The three Saurians acted more aggressively than the lizards in the first chamber. These three seemed more like soldiers. One of them aimed a heavy pistol, more like a flare gun, and fired a slow-moving projectile. I dove and rolled, trying to get away. The projectile turned out to be an electrical shock grenade, which hit the floor nearby, and I heard a sharp sizzling sound. Something like a pumped Taser struck my left hip, jolting me. Then I rolled behind a Saurian vehicle and out of the grenade’s radiating range.

  I slithered across the floor. My left leg was numb from the electrical impulse, and it didn’t respond as well now.

  The three lizard mechs clanked toward me, sounding like something from an Iron Man movie. I strove to get up, to see what was happening. I couldn’t let the lizards beat us now. They would surely torture us, or do other unspeakable things to Rollo and me for killing their kind.

  Rollo fired, with the sound of his .45 loud in the chamber. His bullet whanged off alien armor, leaving a tiny dent.

  Their weapons made softer, popping sounds, and more mini-grenades flew. Two of them hit the vehicles on their side and electric-blue sizzling lines clawed over the top of my backhoe-like machine, flickering with color. I stepped back so I wasn’t touching the vehicle. The last grenade sailed overhead and landed among tubed men and women. I twisted my neck to see what happened. Like a Medusa of blue-sizzling snakes, the electrical lines writhed wildly from the landed grenade, stroking the nearest tubes, but having no effect on the wide-eyed occupants inside. I noted the shock grenade’s limited range. This must be more of their man-catching tech.

  I had to do something before the three of them clanked around my vehicle. From on the floor, I grabbed my left thigh and struggled upright onto one leg, leaning against the vehicle. Past the folded crane, I spied a Saurian mech, took deliberate aim and fired three quick shots at the one piece of his equipment that looked vulnerable: the visor. The last bullet did the trick, and the targeted Saurian staggered backward with a shattered visor and hopefully a gory, ruined face. He crashed onto the floor, a good sign.

  I ducked away and switched to my final magazine.

  “There’s one coming around to your right!” Rollo shouted.

  I used my last grenade, tossing it up and over the vehicle onto the other side. The crump of the explosion and rattle of shrapnel against alien battle armor told me this was my chance. I wanted to roar like a berserk Viking. Instead, silently psyching myself up as I used to do in Afghanistan, I forced myself around the vehicle. The Saurian still staggered, maybe from the force of the grenade’s concussion.

  “Hey,” I said, to get his attention.

  He looked up. It seemed like a reflexive move.

  From point-blank range I fired three times. Shards of visor and then drops of alien blood struck me as ricocheting bullets whined. He toppled back like a felled redwood, slamming against the deck plates.

  The last mech lifted his weapon, aiming at me from ten feet away. He would have killed me, or shocked me into Taser-like submission, but Rollo intervened. Despite his lanky frame, he could be like greased death at the oddest moments. This was one of those times. From behind the mech, Rollo charged and clambered up the Saurian’s back, sticking the barrel of his Browning against the visor. Blam, blam, blam.

  The creature from the stars ate it, and almost took Rollo down with him. My best friend roared and ripped himself loose from the mech’s grip. Then he rolled across the floor as the Saurian soldier clanged to the deck in death and defeat.

  We’d won another encounter, but the ship’s ala
rms still rang and I was down to half a magazine of bullets. We had to think of something else or soon we’d be inside those tubes with the others.

  -4-

  We couldn’t have much time left before the next enemy wave struck. It was move now or forever be an alien’s slave. Running away didn’t seem like an option. They’d just hunt us down in the snowy wasteland of Antarctica. We had to go for the throat, for mastery of the lander.

  We needed more people, and we’d discovered a roomful of them—if we could open the glass tubes. I checked the dead mechs for a useful smashing tool. I couldn’t find one at first, but I did find something that looked interesting. I pulled off a half-moon curved blade from one of the dead aliens. Maybe it was the Saurian version of a bayonet.

  “Come on,” I told Rollo. “Give me a hand.”

  The nearest man inside a standing tube had a crew cut, a sweeping black mustache and wide Slavic features. He was muscular, sported a Z tattoo on his right shoulder and looked tough. Given that the Saurian had first tried to speak to us in Russian, I gave it high odds that the man in there was from that area of the world.

  He banged on his tube from the inside, yelling silently.

  I held up the curved knife and chipped at the cylinder. The blade scratched the glassy surface, but that was it.

  “Wait a minute,” Rollo said. “I have a faster way.”

  Like a kid, he climbed up and jumped into what must have been the driver’s seat of the backhoe-like vehicle. As I’d said, the vehicle had a small crane with a clamp or claw holding the man-sized cylinder. The other cylinders stood upright in floor slots as if they were high school test tubes for a science class. Rollo began experimenting, pressing buttons and pulling levers.

  The ship’s alarm stopped then, which seemed ominous, making it much too quiet. What were the aliens going to do next? Were they worried, calling for backup or getting ready to storm in here with more mechs?

  As I wondered, growing more nervous, the backhoe-like vehicle purred into life.

  “Stand back,” Rollo told me.

  I stepped away from the upright cylinder. The man inside the tube twisted around, looking in alarm at Rollo.

  The crane proved more flexible than a backhoe. It was like one of the tentacles from War of the Worlds. Showing his aptitude for such things, Rollo soon laid the cylinder on the floor lengthways.

  “Good thinking,” I said.

  Rollo didn’t even nod in acknowledgement. He was too busy concentrating. I suspect he knew the odds and our desperation.

  The single big claw gripping the tube began squeezing. Then Rollo took his hands off the vehicle’s controls.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I want to shatter the tube,” Rollo said. “But what if I end up cutting the man inside?”

  “Just get him out,” I said. “We can worry about wounds later.”

  Rollo took a moment and then went back to the controls. Soon, the claw made grinding noises and suddenly, the glass shattered, with shards falling onto the floor.

  “Stop!” I shouted.

  The claw stopped. I rushed forward and used the curved blade to pry away chunks of glass.

  “Are you okay?” I asked the trapped man inside.

  He blinked at me.

  “Can you hear me?” I asked. I wondered on his mental state.

  “You are American,” he said with a Russian accent.

  “Yup,” I said. “Are you Russian?”

  “No, I am Dmitri Rostov, from Zaporizhia.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  “Zaporizhia,” he said. “It is in the Ukraine.”

  “You’re Ukrainian?”

  “No!” he said, vehemently. “I am a Zaporizhian Cossack.”

  I’d heard of Cossacks: hard-riding, freedom-loving people from the steppes or plains of Russia and the Ukraine. They were supposed to be good fighters. Most people knew them as those acrobatic dancers who squatted low, folded their arms on their chests and vigorously kicked out their legs.

  “You were part of the old Soviet Union, right?” I asked.

  “Not anymore,” he said. “Now hurry! Get me out of here.”

  “We’re working on it.” I pried out a big glass chunk, nicking a finger so blood oozed, and finally I cleared a way for him. “You’ll have to slither out,” I said.

  I gave him a hand and soon a stark naked, Dmitri Rostov the Zaporizhian Cossack stood beside me. He was a solid, muscular man, shorter than my six-three, and he looked angry and ready to do something about it.

  “Did they use a pink ray on you?” I asked.

  “On all of us,” he said. “Now, we must hurry and flee the ship.”

  “We’re not fleeing,” I said. “We’re going to hijack this thing and attack the big mother of a starship upstairs.”

  Dmitri’s eyes gleamed as a wild smile creased his face.

  “Yes!” he shouted. “We attack. We kill the lizards. I agree.”

  “Saurians,” Rollo said from the driver’s seat. He used the flexible crane and claw to pluck another cylinder from the floor rack. He was in the process of laying the tube lengthways. “We’re calling the aliens Saurians,” Rollo said.

  Dmitri nodded. “It is good to name the enemy. Saurians. Yes, I approve. Now we must free the rest of the men and women before the aliens bring reinforcements.”

  “Are the others here Russians, Ukrainians or Cossacks?” I asked.

  “I am the only Cossack here,” Dmitri said. “We are from the Russian base at Vostok near the South Pole. Many of these people are former Army soldiers. They are not Cossacks, but they should fight once I tell them your plan.” He stroked his outrageous mustache. “What is your plan?”

  “Do you see those dead Saurians on the floor?” I asked.

  “Yes, I see,” he said. “You are a clever fighter. I applaud you.”

  “That’s what I’m going to do to the rest of the Saurians aboard the lander,” I said. “Afterward, that’s what I’m going to do the rest on the starship that started this.”

  “That is a good plan,” Dmitri said, “an excellent plan. You also have more guns, yes?”

  Rollo cracked the next tube. As I began prying out shattered chunks of glass, I said, “Nope, I’m almost out of ammo. We need more weapons; maybe these alien long-rifles and flare pistols will do.”

  “Anything in a storm,” Dmitri said. His eyes gleamed then, and he grinned viciously. I wondered what the pink ray had done to his mind. “Do you know the aliens have star-armor?” he said.

  As we talked, we helped out the next man. I didn’t answer Dmitri’s question because I was too busy talking to the new man. Unfortunately, he didn’t speak any English. So Dmitri rattled off some quick instructions to him in Russian.

  With the claw, Rollo reached for the next tube.

  I pointed at the dead mechs. “You mean that kind of armor? That’s star-armor?”

  “That is steel,” Dmitri said, “mechanized body armor similar to what Russian and American soldiers use, or will use in fifteen years.”

  “There’s no Russia or America left,” I said.

  Dmitri stared at me, and he grimaced. I don’t know what he was thinking. Had he been married? Had he lost children, a wife, surely his parents, aunts, uncles or cousins? He looked up at the ceiling and muscled cords stood up on his neck. A choked, grieving noise came from him once. He shook his head then, swallowed, and he stared at me with shining eyes.

  “We need guns,” he said in a hoarse voice.

  “Yeah, we need guns,” I agreed. “But we don’t dare leave the ship to get more. The Saurians would seal all the hatches then and we’d never get back on board. No. This is our one chance to hurt the enemy and we have to make the most of it.”

  Dmitri breathed deeply, and he said, “They tested us before.”

  “Tell your friend to stand lookout in the corridor,” I said. “We don’t want the lizards to surprise us.”

  “Yes…” Dmitri said. “That is
wise. You think like a general.” He grabbed his Russian friend by the triceps and spoke rapidly.

  The naked Russian picked up an alien long-rifle and hurried to the entrance. The man had a bloody gash on his back. Getting out of the tubes proved troublesome, but the Russian hadn’t complained. As I’ve said earlier, the tough and mean humans had survived the alien onslaught. These men and women in the tubes hadn’t been idle; they must have kept their eyes open. From careful observation, they appeared to know how to use the alien weaponry. Whatever the pink ray did to a human mind wasn’t lasting, at least.

  Dmitri and I pried out glass from yet another tube. Rollo worked faster now, having gotten the hang of the crane and claw.

  “They tested us earlier,” Dmitri told me.

  “I heard you the first time,” I said. “The aliens have no soul. They’re thorough bastards.”

  “I believe the—what did you call them?” Dmitri asked. “You had a name for aliens.”

  “Saurians!” Rollo shouted from the vehicle. “We’re calling them Saurians.”

  “That is a good name,” Dmitri said. “It makes them sound evil, and they are, my friend. The Saurians want humans for a reason. Like the old Russians did with the Cossacks, the aliens wish humans to soldiers for them.”

  I only half heard Dmitri. His accent made it hard sometimes to know what he was saying. The fighting, the bad air in here, fatigue, maybe some of the aftereffects of the pink ray all combined to dull my thoughts. Realizing that worried me. Were we thinking straight? I couldn’t afford any mistakes.

  What had Dmitri just said? Something about the Saurians making us soldiers.

  “No,” I said. “Not soldiers. The Saurians think we’re beasts.” No one is making me a convict again.

  “Beasts, animals—yes!” Dmitri shouted. “The aliens tested some of us in a horrible manner. Several people died because of them. Two test subjects—I know the reason for the buzzing weapons.”

  The Cossack’s excitable. I frowned, trying to follow his words. “Buzzing weapons… Oh, yeah. The alien projectiles act like Taser grenades.”

  “Listen, my American friend,” Dmitri said. “I spoke to Ella Timoshenko about the tests. We spoke before the Saurians sealed us in the tubes. Ella is scientist. She is very smart and observant.”