by M. R. Forbes
“This is getting bad Sheriff,” Gus said, noticing all of the activity.
“I think they followed us south from New Egypt,” Hayden said. “Let’s make this quick.” He glanced longingly at the command center while cutting left to head to the armory.
He stopped again a moment later. The sirens from the western towers stopped crying out as expected, but it was more than that.
He didn’t hear any gunfire from them.
He swung his head back, finding one of the towers. One of the soldiers was slumped over the railing, a body missing its head.
He didn’t see any trife on the tower.
His heart thudded, his eyes shifting back toward the truck and the western gate, which had been abandoned when the Hellion attacked. It was hanging open, practically begging the trife to come inside.
And they were.
Chapter 21
“I don’t like this, Sheriff,” Pyro said.
The trife were coming through the gate, looking for humans to attack. A group had noticed the injured soldiers and were racing across the open space toward them. The soldiers had their rifles up, shooting at the demons until their magazines ran dry. Then they ran, doing their best to make it to the hospital ahead of the trife.
“We should help them,” Gus said.
“They’re enemies,” Pyro said.
“Not when there are trife involved,” Gus insisted.
“We can’t do much for them without more firepower,” Hayden said, wincing as a trife caught up to the one with the limp, leaping onto his back and dragging him down while he screamed. He quickly snapped his rifle up and targeted through the sight, unleashing a burst of flechettes. They caught the trife in the head, punching it back and off the soldier.
He aimed at the closest group, unleashing more metal slivers. Four of the demons fell. The soldier got back up.
More gunfire followed, some of the soldiers from the east perimeter making it back to the gate, running full-speed across the field.
“There’s no time, Sheriff,” Gus said. “Do we run or do we fight?”
Hayden looked down at the HVRG. A small display showed he had fifty of the flechettes remaining. Even if he were able to make a one for one kill ratio, he would barely make a dent.
“What’s your ammo situation?” he asked them.
Pyro checked her plasma rifle. “Twenty-six, Sheriff.”
“I’ve got a fresh mag,” Gus said.
Hayden looked to the east. The line of soldiers was starting to break, as more of the demons appeared near the trees, piling on top of one another to create a means over the fence and the barbed wire at the top.
He looked west. The trife were pouring through the open gate, which was barely defended, the Liberators approaching from the opposite side too few to stop the flood. These soldiers were all going to die, and once they did, Nurse May and the rest of the people in the fort would die too.
Damn it. He couldn’t go to Tinker to talk about sparing human lives at the same time he ran away from this battle. But how the hell was he going to make a difference when there were thousands of trife streaming into the base from both flanks?
“Follow me,” he said, turning and breaking for the armory. He thought the mongrels might question him, wondering if he had decided to run. They didn’t, instead following silently as they moved away from the heat of the battle.
Hayden entered the armory. There were a pair of heavy blast doors directly in front of him, currently closed. Two more doors sat on either side. He didn’t pay much attention to those, approaching the blast doors. A panel on the left side made it obvious they were secured.
He wasn’t going to be able to get into this one the way he had on the Navy ship. His replacements made him strong, but they didn’t make him strong enough to pull open a fully reinforced iron door.
He had other ways of getting into electronically locked doors.
He walked over to the panel, tapping a code into it. Whether or not the code would take depended on when the panel had been manufactured.
The light on it turned green. The center of the door clanked to unlock, and then the two heavy blast doors started slowly swinging open.
“How the hell did you do that?” Gus asked.
“Yeah, Sheriff,” Pyro said. “How did you guess the code?”
“I didn’t guess,” Hayden said. “United States Space Force tech is all tied to a shared system, at least when it’s all operational. There’s a master code that allows access to pretty much everything. I know that code.”
“How?” Pyro asked.
“It’s a long story,” Hayden replied.
“Better than the story about how I became Gus?”
“Much better.”
He stared into the armory. There were racks along the walls and shelves taking up the floor space, creating aisle after aisle of guns and ammunition and equipment. The room was like the one on the Navy ship, only bigger. Much bigger. And the stuff inside was pristine and modern. He recognized some of it immediately as USSF firearms, and more of it as Centurion-made. Tinker must have been collecting and trading for it for years.
“You’re looking for comm equipment, body armor, and firepower,” Hayden said. “If you see a revolver, grab it for me.”
“Where are you going?” Pyro asked.
“To see if I can even the odds,” Hayden replied. He handed the box of patches over to Gus.
“By yourself?”
“I’ll meet you out front in five minutes. Five. Not one second later. Pozz?”
“Pozz,” they replied.
Hayden turned away, heading back out of the armory while Pyro and Gus moved in, looking for the equipment he had mentioned. He kept the HVRG ready as he hugged the wall of the building, moving laterally toward the motor pool. The trife had reached the hospital, and he could hear gunfire inside and out, and screaming from the bottom floors. He winced at the sound. He had no idea if his plan would work. The whole thing might end with everybody in Fort McGuire dead, including himself and the mongrels.
He had to try.
A group of trife near the hospital spotted him, breaking off and heading his way, taking a wide berth around to close in on him. He had seen the maneuver before. He knew what to expect from it. He turned his back on the demons, sprinting from the edge of the armory to the barracks beside it. He stopped when he reached them, putting his back against the wall and turning around.
Four trife were there, waiting for him to look at them. Like Nathan, trife preferred not to take people from behind. They wanted to give their quarry a chance to fight back.
He didn’t let them down.
He brought the rifle up, pointing it at the lead creature. It hissed in response, stepping forward. Their hive mind meant they would sacrifice themselves for the greater goal. In this case, the lead trife knew by approaching first it was going to die, but it did it anyway and without hesitation.
But Hayden knew the trick. He smiled slightly, waiting for the trife to get a little closer. It took another step, baring its teeth and running its claws together, so they made a grating sound.
The actual fight only lasted a few seconds. Hayden swung the HVRG up, pulling the trigger and sending a burst of flechettes into the two trife climbing down at him along the barracks wall, crouching low and rolling to his left, dropping the rifle and drawing the CRG in one move, at the same time he threw his arm out. He caught the lead trife in the mouth with the fist, the blow shattering its jaw and throwing it aside. He fired at two other trife, rounds catching them in the chest and blowing them back. The last one snapped its teeth within centimeters of his face, and then fell lifeless when he grabbed its neck and crushed its spine.
He stood up, flexing the oversized hand. It was ugly and awkward, but he was getting used to it.
He moved out from the barracks, running along the back of the wall, out of sight of the trife and the soldiers. The motor pool was ahead, and he heard the engines as he got closer, just before half
a dozen vehicles roared out into the open space; modified old cars with armor plates mounted to the front and sides, and heavy machine-guns resting on turrets in the back. A driver steered the vehicle while a gunner manned the gun.
The cars raced across the field, splitting and heading east and west toward the front lines. The other soldiers knew what to do when they saw the vehicles, trying to retreat and let the cars ahead.
The air rumbled as the guns started firing, chewing into the trife and cutting an entire line to shreds. The soldiers near the cars cheered at the outcome, watching dozens of aliens crumple and die.
It was a good effort, but it still wasn’t going to be enough. Hayden watched the lines behind the action. More trife continued to appear, coming up to fight from wherever their nest was located. Did they know what had happened to the north? Did they know something had killed the nest there? Hayden found the xenotrife as fascinating as dangerous. The way they communicated and learned and evolved.
And competed.
He reached the front of the garage. The door the cars had come out of was still open. There were mechanics inside, running back and forth from a bin full of parts to another pair of similar vehicles, trying to get them repaired and ready for use. There were soldiers, too, waiting for the cars and keeping an impatient eye on the fight. They eyed him as he entered, unsure what to make of him. They didn’t know if he belonged there or not.
“There are trife on the east and west side,” Hayden said. “We need to stop trying to defend the perimeter and draw them into the center.”
“What are you talking about?” one of the soldiers said. “Who are you?”
“Duke,” Hayden said. “Sheriff Duke.”
“You’re not a Liberator,” another soldier said.
“No, but if you listen to me I can save your life and the lives of those soldiers out there.”
“Draw them to the center?” the first soldier said. “How is that going to help. We’ll have all our men trapped between them, with no room to maneuver.”
“I know. It’s risky, but it needs to be done.”
The soldier drew his sidearm, pointing it at Hayden. “Or maybe we should kill you. Where did you come from?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Hayden said. “How long to get that car running?”
“Almost there,” the mechanic said, leaning over the hood. “Just had to swap the battery.”
He stood up straight and pulled the rod holding the hood open. The hood slammed down as he reached in through the glassless window and pressed the button to trigger the ignition. The car whirred for a second, and then the old engine came to life.
“We need to bring them to the center,” Hayden said. “Fast. You can shoot me if you feel like it’ll help, but I promise it won’t.”
He started climbing into the driver’s seat. A hand fell on his shoulder.
“Hold on,” one of the soldiers said. Hayden looked him in the eye, challenging him. The soldier smiled. “I’ll drive. You take the gun. How do we do this, Sheriff?”
Chapter 22
The car tore out of the garage, shooting across the field toward the action. Hayden kept a tight grip on the mounted machine gun, using it to keep himself steady as the car rocked and bucked, making the transfer from grass to cement to grass and back again, crossing the distance between the motor pool and the fighting.
The other cars were still out there, riding along the friendly lines and firing into the trife. One of them was gone, and he found it a moment later, on its side too close to the main advance, the bodies of its crew on the grass, their necks slashed. He swallowed hard, pounding the rooftop.
“Get to the other cars!” he shouted to the driver.
The vehicle changed direction slightly, charging toward the other cars. The driver was able to communicate directly with the vehicles, and they both turned around, coming in their direction. Hayden’s car blew past them and slowed, and the other pair turned again. He looked to the western side and saw the three vehicles there had also joined up.
“Are you sure about this?” the driver shouted back at him.
“How else can we get the message out to the soldiers all at once?” he replied.
The other two vehicles sidled up beside theirs, the drivers revving their engines.
“Here we go!” Hayden shouted, banging on the roof again.
The cars started forward, angling for the front line, between the trife and the soldiers. There were demons in the way, and they hissed and tried to move as the armored front of the cars slammed into them, some of them winding up impaled on spikes and others thrown aside. The car on the left started firing into the creatures, getting them to back up.
The car on the right started shooting at the soldiers.
Not at them, but in front of them, laying down a line of fire at their feet.
“Fall back!” Hayden shouted at the top of his longs. “Fall back!”
The soldiers didn’t hesitate to retreat, the rounds falling so close to their feet a strong motivator.
“Retreat!” Hayden screamed. “Run! Fall back!”
The cars swept along the line, reaching the end and turning, forming up and crossing again. The trife were emboldened by the sudden pull back, and they surged forward, trying to close the gap.
Hayden aimed his machine gun and started firing, sending rounds into the advancing trife. Empty shells flew out beside him and landed in the back seat, their heat adding to the existing burns in the old and cracked leather. He sliced through a section of the aliens, cutting them off from the troops.
They continued this way for the next few minutes, sweeping back and forth through the lines, driving the Liberators toward the center of the fort, the trife following behind them. The cars on the west end were doing the same, following the procedure Hayden explained to the driver, and the driver passed to the others. Without the defenders, the trife had completely overcome the fence, tearing it down and piling over it. Their slick pooled into the fort, thousands strong, a mass he hadn’t seen in a while. Fort McGuire had to be drawing power from somewhere nearby to attract so many trife.
The two sides were beginning to close in on one another, both of them herded into the center of the space. The cars made another sweep between the groups, the machine guns on four of the six going quiet as they ran out of ammunition.
Hayden watched the trife, flipping his head back and forth to each side.
“Come on,” he said, waiting for them to notice one another. There was no way they were all from the same nest. It couldn’t be possible. “Come on.”
“Sheriff, it’s not working,” the driver said.
Hayden clenched his jaw. He was right. It wasn’t working. The trife on the east side weren’t paying any attention to the trife on the west side. Damn it.
“Slow down!” he shouted back.
The car started to slow. Hayden balanced, facing toward the trife.
He jumped into their midst.
It was a stupid thing to do. Crazy at best. Most likely fatal. He came down in the middle of half a dozen trife, who reacted with surprise at his sudden appearance.
He stumbled when he hit the ground, slamming into one of the creatures and using it to regain his balance. Claws slashed across his side and his back, scraping against the bodysuit without making it completely through. He ignored them, grabbing the trife he had bumped into and spinning. He held it while he ran back toward the Liberators, who were watching the scene unfold with shock. They whooped and hollered as he brought the single demon into their ranks, resuming their assault on the trife and closing the space behind him.
Hayden dragged the struggling trife in his replacement hand. It tried to slash his wrists and body, but it couldn’t get enough leverage to hurt him. The first time he had encountered a xenotrife, he had thought the creatures were impossibly powerful. He had learned quickly that a single creature by itself wasn’t all that much of a threat at all, at least not to a soldier or a sheriff
.
The two defensive forces had reached the center, merging there and forming a defensive line, back-to-back against the two flanks of trife. It was a line that wouldn’t hold long on its own, and he could see it was already starting to give, the soldiers overwhelmed by the numbers.
Hayden reached the middle, hefting the trife up and over his head. The soldiers around him cheered, the action giving them a little bit of courage and hope.
Then he used the strength of the arm to hurl the demon to the other side, a trife from the east meeting a trife from the west.
It tumbled into the slick. At first, the trife moved around it, letting it get back up. Hayden’s breath caught, his heart pounding. Had his plan failed? He knew it was a risk, but he had held out hope it would work.
He heard hissing at his back, and a soldier screamed as the trife dragged him down and cut his throat. He ignored it, watching the way the demons reacted to the newcomer.
They hissed at one another. Then the eastern trife tried to run, and the western trife tackled it. It screeched in pain in desperation, and then it died.
The change in the fighting wasn’t immediate, but Hayden could sense the shift as soon as the first eastern trife had died. The xenotrife were competitive to a fault, as if their queens kept score on how many humans their nest had killed. They didn’t like other nests encroaching on their territory or their targets, and they often found opposing creatures to be more of a threat than the humans they were attacking.
Hayden wasn’t sure the two groups were from different nests. It was impossible to tell by looking at them. What would happen now that one side knew the other was there?
He stood in the center of the war zone while the trife on both sides stopped attacking the soldiers, instead cutting between them to reach their enemy brethren on the other side. They screeched and hissed as they came together, falling into multiple piles of inky black flesh, dark blood, and claws.
