by Steve Perry
“Billie. It’s me, Wilks. Wake up.”
She blinked her way into consciousness. Her head ached, nausea filled her throat with a sour burning. Soldiers stood nearby, staring down at them from behind sealed faceplates, long rods held in their hands.
“Wilks?”
“Spears. We were hit with concussion grenades.”
Billie didn’t know what he was talking about. Where were they? The last thing she remembered, they were running. It seemed as if they had always been running.
“Billie.”
“What?”
“Are you okay?”
Pieces of it came back to her. The aliens in the corridor. The ship door that wouldn’t open. Men with guns pointed at them, the unspoken decision she and Wilks made together to fight.
“Yeah. I guess. What is going on?”
Powell, seated with his back to the wall, his knees drawn up to his chest, said, “Spears is going to load his tame monsters onto the largest transport ship and lift. He says he’s going to Earth. We get left here, along with all the other marines and scientists.”
“Hey, fuck that noise,” one of the troopers standing next to them said. “You get left here with the other traitors. Those of us who stuck by the general are going with him.”
Powell laughed, a sound on the edge of hysteria. “Are you really that stupid, marine? He doesn’t need you anymore, you’re excess baggage. You get dumped.”
“No way, Major,” a second guard said. “Spears takes care of his own.”
“His own? Christ, he thinks he is fucking God, you moron! You’re nothing more than used toilet tissue to Spears. You’ve served your purpose; you’re going to be flushed and compacted with the rest of us.”
The guards looked at each other. The leader, an older sergeant Billie had talked to once, shook his head. “Bottle it, boys. The major here is just trying to divide and conquer. The general has taken care of you so far, ain’t he? Don’t let this fubbie rattle you. Didn’t you hear the man tell you to pack your gear soon as we get the traitors stocked away?”
The other five guards murmured. Billie thought they still sounded unconvinced but it didn’t seem to matter. They weren’t about to let the three of them go.
“Okay,” the leader said. “Now that sleeping beauty is awake, let’s move it, people.”
Wilks got to his feet, helped Billie up. Two of the marines jerked Powell upright.
Billie saw Wilks gather himself. He was going to try to fight his way out. She didn’t think he would make it, but she would follow his lead.
The lights went out.
“What the fuck—?” somebody yelled.
There was a zapping sound, like an electrical spark, and somebody moaned.
“Spookeyes,” the sergeant in charge hollered. “Turn on your spookeyes!”
A long moment hung there, time suspended like a spider on a strand of glistening silk…
“Eyes on? Everybody see? Report!”
A chorus of assents.
“Nobody moves,” the guard in charge said. “We’re spookeyed and can see you like it was noon on the Equator.”
The lights went back on, three times brighter than they had been before.
The soldiers screamed, almost with one voice. Their hands went up to slap against the closed faceplates. One trooper tore open the clear plate and dug at his eyes.
“What—?”
“Bueller!” Wilks yelled. He kicked one man in the belly, caught the baton he dropped before it hit the deck, whipped the stick against another man’s throat. Even through the suit that must have hurt.
“Go, go! This way!”
Billie followed Wilks, Powell right behind her.
“What happened?!”
Wilks said, “They’re blind. They got the hangar lights all of a sudden amplified a couple of million times by the spookeyes. Ordinary C-suits don’t have blast shields in the faceplates; the military is too cheap to spend the money. It must have been like looking right at an atomic flash. Go!”
Once again, they ran.
* * *
Spears was personally overseeing the loading of the alien modules onto the transport truck from the vault when the frantic call came over the com.
“General, Powell and the other two have escaped!”
Spears felt a stab of irritation. He held it in check. “It doesn’t matter. Penned up or running free, they are still going to be left here when we depart. Maintain watch, shoot them if you see them, but otherwise, let them hide.”
After he discommed, Spears watched one of the modules picked up by the big hoop lifted and carefully stacked on the other modules on the truck. He was the only one who knew the access codes to the starships. Two of the vessels would be making the voyage in tandem, one with cargo, the second with but a single passenger—himself. The other starships would remain here. Terrible waste of matériel, but he couldn’t worry about that. Sacrifices had to be made in war, be it flying stock or troops. A man who couldn’t do the hot work didn’t deserve to command. The engines of the ships that remained behind would be slag thirty seconds after Spears departed. Whoever was left behind was going to stay behind, unless somebody came to take them off. And, given the unreasoning hunger the drone aliens had, it wasn’t likely there’d be anybody left if anybody ever did show up here again.
He’d be taking the queen, of course, she was necessary to his plan. Control her and he controlled the drones. Some of the techbrains thought that a new queen could develop from a drone if there weren’t any other queens around, but that wasn’t likely here. The food supply on this mostly airless lump was pretty limited. The marines and scientists still alive wouldn’t go a long way, unless the aliens had their own version of Jesus to do the loaves and fishes routine.
Spears smiled at that thought. The idea of the aliens with a messiah was funny. Then again, come to it, this group of creatures, of soldiers, might well consider him their messiah. It was true enough. He was going to lead them to a better world, to a kingdom of power and glory. Why wouldn’t they think of him like that? Not that they did much thinking anyway, but then again, neither did human marines.
“Easy with that cargo,” Spears said. “Don’t want to hatch it before its time.”
Not much longer. Too bad about the others at the air station, but that was how it went sometimes. The old adage about the best of battle plans not surviving the first engagement could apply here; still, it was a minor setback. Nothing a decent commander couldn’t take in stride.
Spears grinned again. Soon as he lifted, he decided, he was going to smoke one of the special cigars. Hell, he deserved it. He’d just won his first battle in the war against the aliens. He’d still have plenty to toke up once he won his first encounter on Earth itself. Yes, by God, he would.
* * *
“Now what?” Powell asked.
“Seems like I’ve been here before,” Wilks said.
They were in an unused cargo area, empty cartons stacked in neat rows, forming a maze in which they could stay lost for a little while, at least.
“We can run, but we can’t hide,” Wilks said. “We’ve got to get off this planetoid or we’re dead.”
“How?”
“Spears will be taking the largest ship, my guess. Maybe another one locked to it. We’ve got to find a way to get onto one of the ships before he buttons them up.”
“How?” Powell said again.
“Do you know where the aliens he’ll be taking are stored?”
“A special vault, yes.”
“Let’s get to it.”
“If anybody sees us—” Powell began.
“They’ll shoot us?” Wilks finished. “Big fucking deal, Major. Let’s do it.”
* * *
Spears rode with the first truckload of his precious cargo while his men continued to load the next transporter. Nothing could go wrong at this stage, he had to see to it personally. He had recaptured the queen easily enough, all he’d had to do was find the plac
e she was trying to hide her eggs and wave a flamethrower at them. Once she was caged, the wild aliens running around the base would calm down—at least until they realized she was gone. He had the walls of the queen’s cage opaque so she wouldn’t know where he was taking her until it was too late.
Everything was under control.
* * *
The vault was heavily guarded, the men loading the truck parked in front of the vault were heavily guarded, but the next empty truck fifty meters up the corridor had only the driver and two troopers sitting on it, doing nothing but waiting.
“That’s it,” Wilks said.
“That’s what?” Powell said.
“Our ride. We can hide on that transporter, it’ll take us straight to the ship Spears is using.”
“You’re crazy. We’ll never make it.”
“I’m open to a better idea.”
Powell stared at him, then looked at Billie. She shook her head. “Wilks is pretty good at this stuff,” she said. “He’s saved us before. Whatever he says.”
Wilks nodded at her.
“Okay. This is how I see it…”
* * *
Spears watched the containers being loaded onto the ship. All his plans were about to come to fruition. It was a glorious day for the Corps.
* * *
Billie, naked, stepped around the corner where the three men on the empty truck could see her.
“Jesus Christ,” one of the men said. “Check this out.”
Billie smiled, wet her fingertip with her tongue, and touched her left nipple so it pebbled up and grew hard. Then she stepped back out of sight.
“Hey,” one of the three troopers said, “wait up, honey!”
“You crazy?” the second marine said. “Spears will chew you a new asshole if he catches you gone!”
“It’ll only take a minute,” the first marine said.
“Spears—” the driver began.
“Fuck Spears,” the first marine said.
“Nah,” the second marine said, “I’m with you, I’d rather fuck her. Come on.”
The two marines jogged toward where Billie had disappeared.
When they rounded the corner, they saw her standing there, legs spread wide, arms open, a big smile.
How could men be so stupid? she wondered. Did they really believe that a woman who’d never even met them would be so overcome with lust at the sight of them she’d strip to the skin and beckon to them, all wet and ready?
Apparently so. The two marines moved toward her, already dropping gear and untabbing their coveralls.
Wilks stepped out behind them and bopped each on the head with the wand he’d taken from the other guards. Both men fell, out before they hit the floor.
“Now we have guns and uniforms,” Wilks said.
“Jesus, Wilks, are these the guys who have been protecting the civilized galaxy? No wonder the aliens are ahead.”
Wilks grinned and shook his head. “What can I say? If you can find the way to the test site, the galaxy’s finest will let you join up. Get dressed.”
* * *
“That was quick,” the driver said when he saw the two marines approaching the truck five minutes later. “How was she?”
“I was great,” Billie said, lifting her head and giving him a good view of her face.
The driver reached for his sidearm, but Wilks had his newly acquired carbine pointed at the man’s heart. “You don’t want to do that,” he said. “Let’s take a little walk.”
Three minutes later, with Powell in the driver’s clothing and the driver asleep and tied with the two marines in a closet down the corridor, the crew chief waved the empty truck into the loading area.
The chief knew Powell by sight, so the major kept his face more or less hidden. But the chief didn’t know Wilks or Billie, they were just two more marines as far as he was concerned.
* * *
Spears watched the opaqued cage containing the queen being loaded. If the mother alien was upset, it didn’t show, she was quiet inside the kleersteel box.
Once she was secured, Spears felt better. He spoke to a second lieutenant supervising the loading of the drones. “All right, once the last truck of cargo is loaded I want you to assemble the troops in B-hangar, gear packed and stacked and begin loading the Grant. I want every loyal marine onboard by 1600 hours, clear?”
The lieutenant’s face brightened. “Yes, sir!”
“Carry on.”
Spears walked toward his quarters. He had some items he wanted to pack himself. Once that was done, he would be ready. He smiled at the old adage he’d learned in his first tour. Once you leave a place, don’t look back. There might be something there and it might be gaining on you. In this case there would certainly be something behind him, but it wasn’t going to be following him, much less gaining. He was going to the glorious future; here was nothing but the dead past,
Victis honor, he thought. Let’s hear it for the losers.
22
“What about Mitch?”
Wilks scanned the wide corridor as Powell drove the loaded truck, looking for somebody who might recognize them. So far, nothing.
“I don’t know,” Wilks said. “After that last stunt with the guards in the hangar, he’ll have bailed out of the life-support control room—Spears would have sent troops to secure it. We’re lucky he stuck around as long as he did.”
“You promised we wouldn’t leave him.”
“Look, Billie, he’s brighter than nine tenths of the troopers on this base and that probably includes me. He’ll know we have to get off this planet. We don’t know what Spears has in mind, exactly, but once he’s lifted, whoever is left behind is history, probably pretty quick.”
“We haven’t seen any of the aliens lately,” Billie said. “Maybe they’re all dead.”
“You don’t believe that.”
Powell cleared his throat. “Spears has probably gotten them back under control using the queen,” he said.
“But Mitch—”
“Has got himself some dandy new metal legs and enough sense to know where they need to take him,” Wilks finished. “He’s probably hiding in one of the hangars already.”
Billie fell silent. She wasn’t sure how she felt but she didn’t want to leave Mitch behind, that much she knew.
“We aren’t going to just drive up to the ship, are we?” she said.
“I don’t see why not. You keep your head down, nobody’ll notice you. They’re in a hurry, nobody is going to expect to see us driving the truck. We park, hop off, get lost in the shuffle.”
“It seems unlikely.”
“You don’t know marines very well,” Wilks said.
“He’s right,” Powell put in. “Everybody will be so nervous about screwing up and getting left behind they won’t be working by the numbers.”
Billie shook her head. She didn’t think it would work but she didn’t have any better ideas.
* * *
Pretty much everything material that Spears valued could be tucked into a single hardshell case. There was the pair of matched Smith & Wesson snub-nosed stainless-steel revolvers with custom wood grips, antiques that had belonged to a former South American tinpot dictator who’d set himself up as ruler on Lebanon II in the Khadaji System. Spears had pulled the weapons from the man’s belt after he’d shot him in the head. Here were the carefully packed cigars, snug in their inert gas containers inside a padded plastic box. Next to the cigars, a reader and a small collection of read-only infoballs, military manuals and histories. A hologram of his basic training class on completion day. Probably most of them were dead by now. He had other things, of course, but nothing that couldn’t be replaced. A soldier traveled best who traveled light, after all.
His packing done, Spears left his quarters and started for the ship. He did not look back.
* * *
Despite what he’d told Billie, Wilks was nervous. The hangar was huge and there was a lot of scurrying activity, but if
something was gonna go wrong, it would be in the next few minutes. Well. A man did what he had to do and fuck the rest of it. At least he was armed now, and if he went down, he would go down fighting. There were worse ways to die if you were a marine. And being eaten from the inside out by an alien baby was as bad as anything he could imagine.
Two troopers using hoop-lifts were busy loading the aliens into the ship. The name stenciled on the side was CMC MACARTHUR.
“Pull around beyond the other truck,” Wilks said. “Park it and step off on the opposite side, away from the loaders. There’s a service bay forward, amidships, right?”
“Right.”
“What do we do if somebody recognizes us?” Billie asked.
“Put them down. This ship is leaving. If we have to fight our way onto it, that’s what we do. We can slag the hatch controls and lift right through the roof panel if we have to. Major? You got a problem with that?”
Powell shook his head but did not speak.
Wilks wasn’t sure about Powell, but he didn’t have a lot of choice about his allies at the moment. Billie, yeah. Bueller, if he showed up. Powell, well, he guessed he’d see.
The truck carrying its cargo of potential death rolled forward on its fat silicone tires.
* * *
Spears saw the last truck go past as he approached the ship. Another fifteen minutes and he’d be loaded and ready to leave. The first step toward his ultimate goal, the retaking of Earth.
The lieutenant he’d left in charge came up at a quick step. “Sir, the final transporter has just arrived.”
“Load time?”
“Ten minutes, sir.”
“Good, good. Once the ship is packed, you are to assemble the men at the Grant. The course has been logged in, you’ll follow the MacArthur and the Jackson into orbit and we’ll make the shift to E-space. Any questions?”
“No, sir.”
“Good. Carry on.”
Spears looked at the men loading the MacArthur. Nodded at one of them who glanced over at him. Strode away, toward the command ship Jackson.
* * *
Wilks and Billie were almost at the service hatch when somebody behind them called out.
“Hey, you three! What are you doing there? This area is off-limits!”
