Beachhead Series Collected Adventures Volume One: Invasion Earth series box set

by Chris Lowry

  “Why’s he crying?” Waldo asked. “Lights are a good thing.”

  “Inches,” Burmage sobbed. “We have suffered so long and this was inches away.”

  “We can get people on the roof to clean the panels embedded up there,” said Doc. “We’ll get more power.”

  Lt moved through the opening, followed Crockett.

  “Waldo, Danish, hold this line,” he ordered.

  The two soldiers stood on either side of the door to act guard and keep the rest out.

  “We want to see too,” Jake argued. “You wouldn’t be in there if it wasn’t for her.”

  “Thanks for getting us through the wall,” Lt said to Steph. “Now stay here and don’t fucking move until we check it out.”

  She nodded and stepped back next to Waldo, so she could cover one end of the corridor.

  Jake grumbled, but he set up next to Danish to cover the other side.

  Lt waved Doc forward.

  “Why don’t you give us the nickel tour.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  Doc led them into the bowels of the interior room. Lt studied the corners to get a hint of the size of the place.

  It was almost as large as the warehouse it was hidden inside. He wondered if the corridor stretched on all four sides, wondered if it was as packed with refugees and people hiding as much as the one they broke into.

  “We need a civilian head count,” he said to Babe as they followed the Doc to another door in another wall. A smaller box within the box.

  “And a weapons check,” Babe said. “Think any of them play baseball?”

  He patted his shoulder with the stick.

  “You might be the last ballplayer left on earth,” Lt answered.

  “Makes me kind of sad.”

  “Yeah, me too. But it means you’re the best ballplayer left on earth, so you’ve got that going for you.”

  Doc opened the door to the next room, and LED’s automatically flickered to life.

  “No lock on that one Doc?”

  “No need. If you got in to the first workshop, you were cleared for everything inside.”

  “And what’s inside?”

  Doc stepped back and ushered them through.

  Lt whipped up his rifle and aimed it at a massive figure standing to one side of the door.

  “Whoa! Whoa!” Doc screamed. “Don’t shoot.”

  Lt held his fire, but noticed Babe had readied his weapon as well.

  “This is it,” Doc said in a fast voice. “This is what I was telling you about.”

  Lt glared at the figure in front of him. It was on a mannequin, that much was obvious. He should have seen the details of the smooth features on the face, should have noted the wooden hands.

  But all he saw was the gear. A suit.

  Modeled on the riot gear on the pretend army that greeted them when they busted through the door, this suit looked more advanced.

  “Body armor?” guessed Babe.

  “Much more,” said Doc as he tapped a panel on the chest plate. It popped open to show a circuit board.

  “We built a prototype to send to Mars, before we lost there,” he said.

  His fingers tapped in a code on the armor.

  “This is an exo-skeleton ceramic body armor with strength augumenting mechanical joints.”

  “English Doc,” Lt sighed. “We ain’t Pedes.”

  “It’s a suit of armor with a brain,” he said. “We programmed it to make you stronger, make better soldiers. Blast proof, three sixty protection,” he twirled a helmet around from the back of the head and showed it to them.

  “Head’s up VR display, reticular targeting, and-,”

  He pointed to a chrome bench on the wall.

  “Fucking laser cannons,” Lt grinned.

  “First generation,” said Doc. “We stole the alien design and reverse engineered it. Not as powerful as the weapons they’re using now, but still effective I think.”

  Lt stared at the suits and did a quick head count of them hanging on racks in the room.

  “You build six of these?”

  Doc kept moving to the back of the room. Lt and Babe followed.

  There were pieces lying on a long workbench, ready to be assembled.

  “I didn’t build them,” said Doc. “Not by myself. But the team working here did.”

  He stared at Lt with a hard look in his eyes.

  “When we shut this place down, I never thought we’d be back. I thought it was the end of the human race. We sent our best to Mars, and they lost. But now- now there might be hope.”

  Lt grunted.

  “They weren’t sending the best to Mars, not at the end at least. They were sending up whoever they could to slow ‘em down. But the fucking Lick was coming to earth no matter what we threw at ‘em.”

  He strode back to the wall and lifted up one of the blaster rifles. It was lighter than he expected, and it must have show on his face.

  “Ceramic alloy,” said the Doc. “Like the suit. Their construction. We just borrowed it.”

  “Yeah, I like the idea of killing Lick’s with their own technology. That gives me a tingly feeling in my man parts. What you think Babe?”

  Babe stood in front of one of the suits, ran his finger along the ridge plate at the shoulder.

  “No room for a bat,” he said. “But I’ll make do.”

  Lt nodded.

  “Alright Doc, you weren’t much of a medicine man, but you just might have made up for it with this.”

  “If it works,” said Babe.

  “It works,” said Doc. “A weapon to fight against the aliens on their own terms.”

  “We been bushwhacking the shit out of the Lick,” said Lt. “Now we’ve got some firepower to go with it. Amateur hour is over Babe. It’s time to go pro.”

  Babe grinned and slid one of the suits off the rack. He started to shrug it on.

  “It needs skin contact,” said the Doc. “Here, let me help.”

  Lt watched as he helped Babe suit up inside the armor. It took almost ten minutes to get him locked in. Only the helmet remained.

  “How’s it feel?”

  “Like a second skin.”

  “That’s by design,” said the Doc. “The suit has sensors in it to monitor performance, both of the equipment and the person wearing it.”

  Babe moved around the room. He picked up the fallen stick and swung it through the air. It whistled in an arcing blur.

  “Lt,” he huffed in wonder.

  “Yeah Babe, looks like you got a little starch in your swing.”

  “That’s going to send some heads on a home run.”

  “Go get the others,” Lt told him and turned to the Doc as Babe marched to the cut doorway on the exterior of the room.

  “We’re gonna suit up,” he told the man. “We’re gonna get Lutz, and we’re gonna unleash the hounds of hell.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  The Lick Commander nestled on the lounge with the Nestmate, satiated and spent.

  Her excitement at winning the battle against the humans had turned into a passionate romp between the two of them.

  Now they rested together as he stared at a monitor overlooking the new slave prisoners.

  They were waking, moving slow, but that would improve as orders were given.

  He flicked his tongue in and out, tasting the air for victory. It smelled like the Nestmate.

  She would help him. He knew it. She would aid him in reclaiming this planet, and in recovering his status with his Imminence.

  He just needed a plan.

  As if she read his thoughts, her snout turned to him and flickered a question.

  “Am I not enough to hold your interest?” she hissed with lowered eyelids.

  He could tell she wasn’t angry, but curious.

  “You are my interest,” he hissed back. “And now that you have won a battle over the humans, I wonder if you are ready for more.”

  She clicked one of her claws along the scal
es on his chest.

  “I am always ready for more,” she told him. “It was a shortcoming of His Imminence. He thought me dumb, another of his playthings in the nest. Had he recognized my potential, perhaps things would be different.”

  The Lick Commander nodded.

  “I recognize,” he told her.

  She nestled her face into him. He could feel her breathing.

  “I know,” she said. “Together, we will do great things. Starting with this planet.”

  He thrilled to hear it voice, and wiggled closer to her.

  He would make a plan with her, and a back up plan, just in case she thought he was expendable.

  The humans were going to pay for their revolution.

  BRIDGEHEAD

  Invasion Earth Book 2

  By

  Chris Lowry

  copyright 2017

  Grand Ozarks Media

  All Rights Reserved

  CHAPTER ONE

  Jake stared through the opening in the plasterboard trying to peek over Danish and Waldo as they stood guard over the entrance.

  “What the hell are they doing in there?” he grumbled.

  “Searching,” Steph answered.

  She watched the two soldiers at the entrance, curious but patient. The noise of the crowd stirring around them grew louder, voices murmuring questions and queries, words she couldn’t make out.

  “You opened it,” Jake complained. “You should have gone in.”

  “Then I’d be in there, and you’d be out here all alone,” she said in a matter of fact voice.

  The noise grew louder, and now Jake could hear yelling and sharp screams from the far corner of the corridor that stretched from the roll up doors where they entered the entire length of the building, and around the edges.

  The fifteen-foot space was packed with people, survivors of the alien invasion who took refuge in the building, even though they couldn’t access the enclosed space inside.

  Until Steph showed up and sawed a hole in the wall.

  A watery eyed man hustled up to Waldo.

  “I need to speak to your leader,” he said in a panicked whisper.

  “Take me to your leader?” Crocket shifted his weapon in his grip. “Isn’t that what the Lick said?”

  When the Lick touched down on planet earth three years ago, the first encounter was destroying a convocation of world leaders. The second encounter was killing all of their replacements.

  “We have a problem,” Burmage stammered.

  The sagging skin on his neck and jowls shook as he moved his head back and forth, peering over his shoulders and then at the noise growing ever louder from the far end of the building.

  “Lt!” Waldo shouted over his shoulder.

  “What?” a voice screamed from inside the room.

  “Trouble!”

  Lt William Bonney marched through the knife cut opening in the wall and stared at the murmuring crowd.

  “Them?” he grunted.

  “Him,” Waldo pointed to Burmage.

  The first man to meet them when they broke into the warehouse blinked up at Lt and wrung his hands.

  “We don’t normally open any doors during daylight,” he explained. “Because it attracts attention.”

  “What kind of attention?” Lt snapped. “Licks?”

  Burmage licked his lips, eyes brimming with unshed tears.

  “Rivals,” he squeaked. “Bandits.”

  “Banditos?” Lt crowed. He slapped Waldo on the back. “We haven’t had a run in with bandits in, how long Waldo? Six months?”

  “About that, Sir.”

  “See,” Lt rounded on Burmage. “I hate me some Licks, but there’s two things I hate worse. Traitors who work with the Licks and sell out their fellow survivors, and damn bullies calling themselves Bandits. They don’t want to work for it, they just want to take what other folks have worked hard for. It is un-damn American, and we ain’t going to stand for it. Are we Crockett?”

  “No, Lt.”

  “Waldo, get in there and tell Babe to get suited up. Send Doc out here. You,” he pointed at Jake. “Follow me.”

  He started down the corridor toward the small metal doorway embedded in one wall.

  “Girl,” Lt called out. “Tell ‘em which way we went.”

  “The name is Steph,” she shouted.

  Lt drew up short.

  “Where the hell are my manners,” he scoffed at Jake. “Listen, Steph, I’m offering you my sincere apology for forgetting my manners. If my Mamaw was still alive, she’d send me out in the woods to get a switch for that lapse. I’ve got your name, and I ain’t gonna forget it. And if I do, you have permission to call me on it. Name’s a powerful thing.”

  “Thank you,” said Steph.

  “But you’re name ain’t Steph, not to me.”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s Steph,” she said. “Short for Stephanie.”

  “Well and good,” said Lt. “But now ain’t the time for debate nor is it time for a naming ceremony. Can you shoot Annie Oakley?”

  “Don’t call me Annie,” she begged.

  “Alright Oakley, do what I said and tell the fucking Doc to find me.”

  He turned his back on the girl and began walking. Jake fell in step behind him.

  “Where are we going?”

  “The man said there was trouble. Weren’t you listening.”

  “Yeah,” Jake sulked. “Bandits.”

  “Bandits,” Lt agreed. “We’re gonna go see what they want. Bandits always want something.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Lt peeked around the corner of the door.

  “Where?” he asked Burmage.

  The stout man pointed to the edge of the fence. Lt squinted and glared at the shadows, as if willing the men to appear. Then by magic he could see them.

  Not magic, really, he sniffed. Bumps, and not the kind that go in the night.

  “Fuckers got ghillie suits.”

  He heard Burmage make a noise of agreement behind him. Lt watched the ground move. It slithered and rolled, slow and steady in a relentless onslaught, tortoise speed, toward the warehouse.

  “What do you have that they want?” Bonney turned his head enough to watch Burmage and still keep the bandits advance in his peripheral vision.

  “They take everything,” the man whispered almost like a sob. “Food. Shelter. Anything we find, they take.”

  “They know about the inside?”

  He got a head shake for an answer.

  “No one knew,” he said. “No one remembered. I mean I knew the lab was there, but inside? No. We only dreamed of getting in.”

  “If you can’t find a door, make one,” Lt said and shifted back into the shadows. “I wish we had a damn radio. How fast can you run?”

  “Depends on what’s chasing me,” Jake cocked up an eyebrow.

  “Which do you think is faster? A bullet or my boot up your ass?”

  “What size shoe do you wear?”

  “Hey Burmage, those bandits all around or they pretty much stick to one point of entry?”

  “Just the one spot in the fence they cut.”

  “They know you’re watching?”

  Burmage nodded.

  “It seems to give them a thrill.”

  “Why don’t you just shoot them?” Jake huffed.

  “We don’t have guns.”

  “I meant him,” he pointed to Lt. “Us.”

  “I aim to see what they want first. I don’t have anything against a shoot first policy as a standard, but I reserve that for Licks. People, they get a little rope to hang themselves with.”

  “People work with Licks, you know,” Jake muttered under his breath.

  “Brother, I know it. And I don’t like it any more than you do by the sound of your voice. But let’s play it my way til I say otherwise.”