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

by Chris Lowry

  “He went in there,” she stopped and pointed.

  Lt held Jake back.

  “Check it out,” he told Babe and Waldo.

  They two soldiers went into the building and came back seconds later.

  “It’s empty,” said Waldo. “But there’s a door on the other side, goes into a tunnel.”

  Lt turned on the girl.

  “You know where that tunnel goes?”

  She shook her head.

  “Is that the work detail?”

  Again she shrugged.

  “Damn it,” said Lt.

  No plan survived contact, he thought.

  “Take her back and tie her up,” he told Jake.

  “She’s a prisoner, Lt,” Jake protested.

  “Just til we come back through with Lutz.”

  Jake shook his head.

  “Yes Sir,” he agreed.

  “You cover us til we get back, keep this way open. We can grab a hovercraft from here.”

  He watched Jake lead the girl back to the hovercraft, then led Waldo and Babe into the second warehouse.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  “There,” the Nestmate tapped her claw against the monitor to draw Lick Commander’s eyes to it.

  He stared at the apparition from the past.

  Three suits marched through one of the facilities and into the dark tunnel toward his human space ship.

  “They do not look like the other humans,” she hissed.

  “They are not like the other humans,” he answered. “They wear the battle armor we encountered when first on the red planetoid.”

  “Warriors?” she breathed, tongue twirling to taste danger or fear.

  He had none for her.

  “I have encountered these before in space,” he told her. “I know their weakness.”

  “Send in the fodder and destroy them,” she advised.

  But he shook his snout.

  “That is not their weakness,” he informed her.

  She watched him turn and stalk across his command chamber to a small alcove recessed into the composite wall.

  He keyed a sequence into the coded lock. A section of the wall whisked upwards to reveal a small compartment, large enough for him to stand in and move around. The Lick Commander entered the tiny room and shut the door behind him before the Nestmate could see what was inside or ask any questions.

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  Lt moved against one wall out of habit. He didn’t need it for cover. The tunnel was pitch black on the exterior of the suit.

  Inside his helmet though, he could see as if it was daylight. The heads up display gave him a graphical representation of the area they moved through.

  Babe and Waldo trailed after him, spaced out so they could react if something happened.

  He expected it to happen soon. His gut was twinging like a drum, and he bet the nano inside of him was working overtime to counteract the adrenaline dump his brain was doing.

  He could feel it, the edge of anticipation and almost excitement before engaging battle.

  He fucking hated fighting, but a small part of him loved it too. And he didn’t like that about himself, but he accepted it.

  Lt supposed that was why he was pretty good at it. Fighting that is. Killing the Lick. There was no inner conflict to make a bullet stray, or the blasts from this first generation rifle he held now.

  He was okay with killing the aliens, okay with killing the humans that collaborated with them, and the suit made it easier to get the job done.

  It also made him feel more robotic, though he wondered if that was because he kept catching glimpses of his squad out of the corner of his eye before, or even himself in a reflection on their face plate.

  He looked like a robot, so he felt like a robot inside.

  “Damn nanos,” he muttered.

  Maybe the miniature robots inside his system were making him feel that way. Or maybe he just missed the keyed up feeling from the adrenaline.

  He figured that was it, because he could still feel.

  “Feel like killing Licks,” he said under his breath.

  Babe made a questioning noise behind him.

  “Heads up,” said Lt.

  The end of the tunnel appeared in growing shades of brightness and they slowed to a crawl.

  Lt led Babe and Waldo to a harsh edge of light that demarcated the end of the tunnel.

  Bonney held up two fingers on his right hand to indicate the guards on his right. He pointed to Babe, and pointed the fingers at the back of their lizard heads.

  Babe nodded.

  He repeated the action to indicate the two on the left to Waldo, and the soldier acknowledge with a half salute, then raised his rifle to his shoulder.

  Lt shouldered his own weapon and took aim at the back of one of the guards.

  He fired, and the tunnel filled with six flashes of light that vaporized the Lick guards.

  Their bodies hadn’t even hit the floor when the three armored suits sprinted into the room, breaking formation. Babe flanked right.

  Waldo flanked left and Lt ran up the center.

  Another guard whirled around and got off one shot that went over Lt’s head before he was drilled in the snout by a bright beam.

  Babe took out another.

  Johnson screamed and turned to run, the other humans joining him, but there was nowhere to go.

  Lutz grabbed a pipe and turned to face this new threat. He drew back over his shoulder and prepared to go down fighting.

  “For Babe!” he screamed and charged Lt.

  Bonney dodged to one side and Lutz missed. Lt slid his visor up.

  “What the hell Lutz, you gonna go after a superior officer like that?”

  Lutz dropped the pipe and tried not to cry.

  “Lt!” he screamed and wrapped his arms around the suit. Lt pounded him on the back as Babe and Waldo ran across the room.

  Lutz saw Babe in the suit and let go of Lt to grab his best friend.

  “God damn, took you long enough,” he sniffed.

  Babe couldn’t speak past the lump in his throat.

  Waldo curled his arms around both of them, blaster still held in one hand.

  “Alright boys, we can do the reunion once we’re outta here,” Lt rasped past a lump of his own. “What they hell you got here Lutz?”

  He eyed the star craft squatting in the middle of the room.

  “XS-J, Lt,” Lutz swiped the tears leaking from his eyes. “That damn Lick wanted us to get it started for him.”

  Lt stared at the dark tunnel and the shuttle, debating. He rushed over to the matte black shuttle and circled it.

  “Could you?”

  “This guy was working with them on it,” Lutz pointed out Johnson.

  “Collaborator,” Babe spit.

  “Bring him here,” Lt said.

  Waldo jerked the cowering man out of the huddle of prisoners standing aimless as they watched the soldiers in strange suits rescue one of them.

  “You get this thing to fly?”

  Johnson shook his head, stringy hair flapping around his thin face.

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “If I knew that, I could make it work.”

  “You a rocket scientist?”

  Johnson shook his head again.

  “Just unlucky enough to figure things out,” he said.

  Lt eyed the paunch of his stomach, out of place among the emaciated prisoners.

  “Looks like you figured out something,” he sneered.

  “I am a survivor,” Johnson shrugged.

  “You haven’t made it out of here yet,” Lt told him and bit back on the pleasure he got watching the man shiver in fear.

  “Alright,” Lt turned to Waldo and Babe. “No time to stay here and get it running.”

  “Destroy it?” Waldo asked.

  He lifted his blaster and sent a shot into the XS-J as Johnson screamed no and dropped to the floor.

  The beam bounced off the hull and ricochet
ed into one of the prisoners, splattering him across the floor.

  “Damn it Waldo!” shouted Lt.

  “I was aiming for the engine,” Waldo pouted.

  “Was he one of the good ones?” Lt asked Lutz.

  Lutz shrugged.

  “Didn’t know him. Don’t know any of them.”

  “The hull is blast proof,” said Johnson as he climbed off the floor. “You can’t destroy it with our weapons.”

  “These things weren’t that stable to begin with,” said Lutz. “My brother told me they all blew up going into space.”

  “Not all of them,” said Babe.

  “Most of them.”

  “Well if he can’t get this one running, we’re not going to leave someone behind who can. You, you’re coming with us.”

  Johnson started to back away. He turned and ran.

  Lutz lunged after him.

  “Wait,” Lt ordered. “Babe, Waldo, get all them out of here. I’ll grab that one.”

  He started after the fleeing man who ran to the far end of the room, trying to keep the shuttle between himself and the man in the Suit.

  Babe and Waldo rounded up the survivors, including Lutz and led them into the dark tunnel.

  “Look here idiot,” Lt said as he stalked after the man. “You got two choices in this matter. Either I shoot you, or you come with.”

  A hidden doorway opened on the other side of Johnson.

  “There’s a third option,” said Jake as he stepped through.

  He cracked Johnson across the back of the head with the butt of his rifle and kicked the body out of the way, leaving a smear of crimson on the polished concrete floor.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” Lt stared at the doorway.

  “Following orders,” said Jake.

  Lick Commander ducked under the hidden panel and moved into the room. He wore an exo-skeleton much like the one Lt wore, designed for his seven-foot frame.

  Lt didn’t bother to nest his rifle. He sent a blast toward the alien and a second toward Jake.

  The boy was fast and ducked out of the way. The alien not so much.

  The blast slammed into its chest and sent it sprawling on the floor.

  Jake ran for the dark tunnel entrance, shooting over his shoulder as he ran.

  None of the blasts came close, but it forced Lt to duck.

  Jake hit the dark edge of the tunnel and disappeared after Waldo and Babe.

  Bonney jumped up to run after him, and had just enough time to see a blur out of the corner of his eye.

  Lick Commander slammed into him and pounded him into the wall. Lt slid to the floor.

  The alien grabbed him by the boot and twirled him across the room. The blaster flew one way, Lt the other.

  He crashed into the side of the shuttle and slid down.

  Lt blinked back the shadows, trying to gain his feet to keep the world from going black.

  An alarm blared inside his helmet, warnings flashing red as the computerized components tried to reroute systems.

  He glanced around, searching for a weapon as the alien stalked toward him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  Jake ran through the darkness. The heads up display inside his helmet turned the interior of the tunnel into a tinge of green, but he didn’t notice.

  He only saw the way was clear. His mind was racing as he tried to recall why he was running.

  Someone had been there. Someone stepped out of the shadows as he guarded the entrance and spoke to him in a hissing robotic voice.

  He couldn’t remember anything else, except to run.

  They were back there. A platoon of Licks or more. They killed Lt and Jake almost didn’t make it.

  He couldn’t remember.

  He only knew he was running, trying to escape. Death chased him in the darkness.

  He almost shot Babe.

  The giant was standing in the middle of the tunnel, rifle aimed at Jake as he ran.

  The young man slid to a stop and almost spilled onto his knees despite the compensators in the suit.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Babe screamed.

  “They got Lt,” Jake sobbed. “He sent me to flank and they got him.”

  Babe started to run back up the tunnel, but Jake grabbed him.

  “There are too many of them,” he screamed.

  He aimed his rifle at the concrete roof of the tunnel and fired a bolt into ceiling. Dust and chunks of debris rained down like a scattering of stone rain.

  “We have to get him,” Babe yelled.

  “No time!” Jake shouted back. “They’re coming.”

  He could see them. In his mind, he saw the platoon, moving through the darkness as they threatened to overwhelm them.

  The alien snouts licking the air, tasting victory.

  He sent a second, then a third blast into the ceiling.

  Waldo ran to them.

  “Where’s Lt!” he screamed in the noise and confusion.

  “Dead,” Babe said in a flat voice. “Fucking Licks killed him.”

  “They’re coming!” Jake screamed over the whine of his blaster.

  Babe and Waldo joined him, sending shots of their own into the ceiling. It cracked and crumbled in a cascading avalanche that blocked the way into the warehouse.

  A plume of dust and smoke chased the trio out of the tunnel and enveloped the entrance.

  It covered the suits in a layer of grime. Lutz coughed and gagged in the cloud.

  Babe lifted him up and carried him out.

  “Lt?” he coughed.

  But no one could answer him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  “You started all of my trouble,” Lick Commander hissed through the voice box attached to his suit.

  The plodding footsteps echoed on the chamber floor as he stalked toward Lt.

  Bonney kept blinking. The suit protected him from most of the blows, and the flight through the air almost would have been fun, except for the landing.

  The landing hurt.

  The Lick got closer and sent a boot into his helmet.

  Again, the suit absorbed most of the blow, but something about the physics of the angle cracked his jaw to one side as his head spun around.

  He crawled across the floor, made it six feet before an alien boot cracked into his ribs and sent him into the machine attached to the XS-J.

  He fumbled off the floor, hands pounding the unseen keys as his gloved fingers fought for purchase.

  Lt spied his blaster and leaped for it.

  He wrapped his fingers around the tip of the barrel as the alien grabbed his boot and sent him spinning through the room again.

  This time he held onto it as he tumbled, flipped through the air and smashed on his back to fetch up against the corner where the wall met the floor.

  Lt rolled over, lifted the rifle and aimed at the Lick Commander. He squeezed the trigger.

  The blaster made a pitiful whine that grew in volume.

  Lt saw the barrel was crimped just as his headset went all red with a critical overload warning.

  He didn’t think, he whipped the blaster at the alien’s head, because if it was going to blow, it might as well take an enemy with him.

  The Lick Commander ducked, his reflexes enhanced by the modified suit he wore as well.

  The rifle sailed over its head, clattered on the concrete floor and fetched up against the hidden doorway.

  Lt had enough time to duck, cover his head as the whine reached an earsplitting pitch and the world around them went supernova in an explosion that turned everything white before it went dark.

  The Adventure Continues