by Mel Todd
~Your people are like what we saw in your records. There were multiple arguments that they were all fiction, stories told to make you feel better in the dark times.~ Rarz sounded thoughtful even as his own flexible fingers worked on a weapon.
McKenna closed her eyes and tried not to laugh. ~They probably were movies, but we have our own heroes. And most heroes tend to be based on someone. Audie Murphy, Alvin York, Paul Revere, heck Lewis and Clark. We aren't perfect, but there are an awful lot of people who will risk their lives to save others. We get reminded of that every time there’s a natural disaster and they show the people who risk their own lives to save others. Are all of us willing? No. Are some of us? Absolutely.~
~You are a weird and wonderful species. I hope we survive this so I have the opportunity to learn more about your people.~
~I think we all hope that. We have families to go home to.~ With that, McKenna sent a ping of love and worry to the kids, all of them. She almost cried as they responded back fourfold with their own love. From Toni and JD's reactions, the only two she could see, they sent it to everyone. Charley had dropped out of her eyes when it was obvious she had it down on how to alter the weapons, or at least they hoped they had it. They wouldn't know if it worked, or if they were still as dangerous as ever until they tested them.
But whom are we going to shoot at?
Chapter 18 - Suck it Up
Word has leaked out of DC about a secret mission from DC. No details, but what has been gleaned sounds like a plot from a bad World War II movie. There are rumors of a way to sneak onto one of the ships and try to rescue some of the captured shifters. No one can say how they will get on, or how they will get back, much less with as many people as have been captured, but we can only hope this, like most Hollywood endings, is a happy one. ~TNN Invasion news
The truck slowed to a stop and the engine shut off. This time she figured it was planned as she heard people talking. Stretching a bit, her muscles and body just ached from being bent over and on the floor. The nanobots weren't worried about her low-level pain at this point, or so Wefor had informed her. They were still trying to repair and build up muscle and fat stores. The lactic acid in her muscles wasn't important right now.
Seriously, I've got this wondrous thing in my body and I still get stiff and sore. Oh well, can't say I'm missing my period at all.
Stepping down out of the back of the truck, she almost fell as it registered what was going on around her. The truck had stopped at one edge of a huge stadium, the seats stretching up into the sky. All around her tents were set up, military personnel were running around, and piles of supplies were on pallets.
"You going to just stand there?" JD asked, a wry tone to his voice.
"Oh, yeah, but look," McKenna said, moving out of the way and looking around at the organized chaos.
"Wow. When those guys decide to do something, they don't take it by half measures do they?" JD gave a low whistle as they looked at the staging area for their attempted rescue.
"What good would that do? This is a last-ditch effort to save our world." Geoff walked up with Burby and Roberts beside him. "If it doesn't work, the other plans we have in place may not be enough to save any of the human race."
"Plans like?"
McKenna was glad Cass had asked, she didn't know if she could have asked and not sounded bitter.
"You aren't cleared to know, and if you don't succeed, it won't matter. We'll all be dead anyhow." Burby replied, his voice grim, but not mean. "So what's with all the alien weapons?"
McKenna explained even as Miguel and the rest of the Bravo and Charlie groups surrounded her.
"You ready to test it?" Miguel asked, a bit of challenge in his voice.
"We sure are," JD replied, his voice easy. If he'd been from the South, McKenna knew he would have drawled that, just to rile people up. Miguel had managed to get under his skin.
"Good." Miguel stared right back, even though JD was in warrior form and the furry face full of sharp teeth made most people nervous.
"Cass, you ready?" JD asked instead of responding to Miguel.
McKenna blinked. Cass hadn't been one of the people in the transport with her.
Huh, she and JD must have been talking as we worked. I'll keep my mouth shut and let them take this.
That took more restraint than she had anticipated. She wanted to protest and say no, shoot me, but she stood and watched, claws sliding in and out of her hands.
Cass looked around and shrugged. "Against the truck side. The canvas should show any scorch marks."
JD's massive shoulders lifted in something approaching a shrug as he walked over. Everyone else cleared out, though they were drawing attention from multiple people and the chatter around them started to fade.
JD stood, his arms crossed, making furry biceps bulge. While facial expressions were very difficult to read in the half-animal, half-human configuration, he didn't seem worried at all.
I think his fur is shorter in warrior form than it is in animal form.
The idle thought flickered through her mind as she tried to not panic. Images of Caroline flashed through her mind and she couldn't push them away.
Cass lifted the weapon, looking all too comfortable with it. They weighed a bit more than the AR-15 did but less than the M240B they'd been training with. Cass aimed away from JD at the side of the truck, the olive green canvas rippling in the breeze.
While out in the field, most of them had lowered the sensitivity of their hearing to deal with the noise of their guns. Which meant the subtle noises the alien weapons made weren't anything she had noticed.
This time she paid attention. The strange weapon, well, not so strange anymore as Charley had explained everything. He knew so much about them, even if he'd never held one in reality. It made an odd buzz-whine sound. Like a bug zapper but at a different range. She didn't know how to explain it, but knew she'd recognize it always from now on.
Light burst from the gun, but rather than the long stream of red she expected, a flash of pale red appeared, and then the canvas wobbled.
JD turned to look at it. "Looks intact, no smoke or scorching."
They had all seen bolts miss, and they always damaged what it hit.
"Okay be aware these are not precision weapons, so I'm going to aim near him." Cass said the words in a calm tone, but as she was still in her human form McKenna could see how stiff she was.
The inclination to check on Cass and make sure she was okay nibbled at her heart, but McKenna didn't want to distract her, so she stood there projecting confidence and unconcern.
Maybe the rest of them will believe my act.
Cass took a slow breath and aimed the weapon at JD. From her vantage point it looked like she pointed it directly at him. With effort, McKenna kept her breathing at a slow steady rate. She could feel Miguel, Geoff, and the others watching her. Luckily this form kept her emotions much more opaque.
She did glance at Rarz and he simply looked interested, no obvious reaction on his face.
Before she could stress anymore, Cass pulled the trigger. Again the flash of light and JD flinched.
"Did it hurt, did it stun?" The words tumbled from Cass fast, garbled even as she started to move towards him, her already pale face going almost white.
"It's fine, my arm just went dead. It's like it fell asleep." He rubbed it and frowned. "I can't even lift it. I know it's there, but I can't get it to respond to any of my commands."
"Not bad, but I want to see what happens." Miguel sighed. "But I don't have the time to wait to get you to wake up if it does work. And if it kills you, I really can't afford that." He turned and spoke to the assembled crowd. "Who wants to volunteer? Can't guarantee you won't die." There was a rippled of unsure laughter, but McKenna knew he wasn't joking.
She shot a look at Cass who shrugged. ~So you don't know?~
~How the hell would I know? You altered them.~ Cass said back in a frantic tone.
"Sure, Chief. This count as a KIA
if I die? And get the payout?" A young voice came out of the crowd. McKenna spun trying to trace who was talking.
"Yes." Miguel replied his voice flat, unmoving.
"Geoff!" McKenna hissed.
Geoff turned to look at her, his face flat. "We need to know. Thousands are dying every day. If we lose one, we at least know."
She growled but didn't know what to say.
Should I say let's sacrifice a pet? A cow? A sheep? I don't know what the right option is.
"I'll do it." A young woman stepped out of the crowd. Her jaw locked and face a mask. "Most everyone I loved has already been killed. My sister's a shifter. So yeah. You can test it on me. My mom could use the money if I die."
The level of bitterness made McKenna flinch.
~Wefor, did I do it right? Will she die?~ Her thought held over tones of frantic worry and everyone could hear it.
[All the information provided indicates the odds of dying from a single direct hit are less than five percent, assuming basic deviations.]
~So, doubtful she will die.~
[Affirmative.]
The young woman walked forward and took a stance next to JD, a smirk on her face that held no humor and all bravado. "Fire away."
~I don't like this,~ Toni muttered the words, but no one moved to stop it.
Cass didn't say anything as JD slowly moved out of the way. Her hands shook as she lifted the weapon and pointed it at the young woman.
~This will devastate her if something goes wrong.~ The thought came from JD, tight on a personal channel with stress and worry wrapped around every word.
McKenna wanted to reach out to him, squeeze his hand, but he was too far away, and people would notice. Instead she hit him with reassurance and held her breath.
The flash of light and the girl crumpled to the ground. Cass had dropped the weapon and was sprinting to her before the woman's hair quit moving. A few others in uniform were right behind her.
McKenna stayed back no matter how much she wanted to go up there. Right now she'd only be in the way.
"Dammit, I should have thought about this." Geoff growled as he hit his phone and barked into it. "I need medics here, ASAP."
~She's alive~ the words were rushed out in the mindspace and McKenna felt her knees wobble.
Oh good. I really didn't want to have gotten someone killed.
The rush of relief that filled the mindspace didn't help with staying upright and she didn't know whom it came from, if not everyone.
Chaos reigned for a while as people checked over the woman. McKenna never did catch her name. Miguel shrugged it off, though from the pinched look on his face something else was bugging him.
"We don't have time for this. Head over here and we'll go over the last bits."
He guided all of them, Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie groups to a clear area surrounded by tents, food areas, and people frantically stacking crates.
"I wish this damn stadium had a dome that would close," Miguel muttered as he looked up at the open sky. "Oh, well. Make do with what you have I guess." He didn't seem to be talking to any of them, so McKenna didn't comment. He turned and looked them all over. McKenna tried to imagine what he saw; they must have looked like a motley group.
JD and Perc were in their hulking forms, dark brown fur and beige with dark brown spots. Toni was in her elegant black, the green of her eyes and whiteness of her whiskers creating a stark contrast against her pelt. Herself, with her wheat colored fur and average build for a Kaylid, was the most unremarkable of them all. Cass leaning against JD, still pale, but with a stubborn look on her face, made up their group. Everyone else looked professional, ready, and somehow better suited.
Rarz stood off to the side, watching all of them with a look on his face she couldn't interpret.
"I can't believe I agreed to this. You're not the group that should be doing this." Miguel spun to face Geoff, the Bravo and Charlie Company leads near him. "There has to be another way. I can't take these cowboys into a combat situation. They're going to get everyone killed and maybe the planet. They don't belong here."
McKenna blinked and a wordless snarl filled the mindspace. She didn't know if it came from her or the others.
Deep breath, losing your temper won't help.
"Too bad. You're stuck with them. They're what you have to work with so suck it up and deal." Geoff fired back, not even looking at them.
McKenna sensed some of the military personnel starting to edge away, as if trying to distance themselves from being associated with the shifters.
"Hell, we don't even let women do combat as a regular thing and you want me to take two pussies into a combat situation and expect them to kill aliens? At the first sign of something going wrong, they'll freak and get all my people killed."
That pussy comment was the last straw for McKenna. She'd done everything possible to try and do the right thing. Figuring out how to even tell people about aliens had been hard. Becoming a warrior and dealing with an AI in her head was something that still freaked her out. But not once in all of this, the kidnappings, the AI, the aliens, the dragons, the fucking spaceships, had she had a meltdown, lost it, or done anything except everything she could.
Chapter 19 - Confrontations
While the US has their garbage trucks picking up bodies, other countries have different options, such as carts in Russia, or funeral homes picking them up in Britain. But what is disturbing are the images of China. They are ignoring the dead, and most of them seem to be human. What satellite images there are show people in the streets weeping, pictures of the Elentrin, and dead Chinese. While we can only guess why they were killed, the foundation that is being laid for disease in China is terrifying. Will we survive this invasion, only to die from plague? ~TNN Invasion Report
"Who the hell do you think you are?" She snarled out the words, twisting them, and making them raspy as her anger overrode the control of her tongue in this form.
The two men stiffened and looked at her, their eyes widening as she stalked toward them. Her tail slashed the air back and forth as she got up in their faces.
"Who are you to judge me and mine? You have no idea what we’ve been through or done. Do you have any idea what it’s like to have an intelligent computer living in your head telling you that your world is about to be destroyed if you don't stop it?" Her claws slid out, long, sharp, and she ached to show them exactly she could do. "Trying to figure out how to get someone with power to listen to you? To not get locked up as a crazy when you try to tell them aliens are coming? Can you imagine having your loved ones held as hostage if you don't kill people? Or learning you can turn into a monster that lurks in the shadows of our mythology? Then realizing you can't do anything and stepping back, trying to hope that the information you passed on was enough, and that maybe your world won't be destroyed?" Her voice vibrated with rage and she could feel all her fur standing on end. The people around her had paled and more than one hand started to drift to their weapons.
McKenna didn't care. She had tried to do the right thing at every turn and this was how they thought of her?
"To then find out you need to be in the middle again? That killing people, aliens, seeing friends die, knowing you can't change anything, only to find out you're the bloody chosen one? A chosen one who can only watch her friends put themselves in danger? A chosen one who if she fails in what some fucking stranger told her to do will be the reason her entire world dies? Who the hell do you think you are to judge me?!"
Rage had her seeing red literally, and both men looked at her, their faces pale, eyes wide and she wanted them to run. Run so she could chase them and tear them to pieces. Attack her, so she could slash and rend and show them what she could do in this is form.
[McKenna.] Wefor's voice came through, unexpectedly gentle.
"What?" She snarled the word out loud, unable to try to speak in the mindspace.
[You need them. They are rude and uncultured. But killing them will start a chain of events that will
not end well for your world. You are needed. They are needed.]
~You are valued. We trust you.~ Cass said the words, even as she laid a hand on McKenna's arm, stepping in between her and the two men.
McKenna turned her head to look at Cass and realized a lot of people had their weapons drawn and aimed at her.
"He's an ass. But we have a job to do. One only we can do." Cass kept her voice soft and calming and McKenna pushed back her anger, taking a long deep breath through her nose. Anger, fear, embarrassment, and panic warred with each other as she tried to stitch her soul back together.
If we survive this, I need a long week in a cabin, just us. No strangers, just us being animals and humans as we want.
Both men had straightened, their faces now flushed where they had been pale.
"Ms. Largo," Geoff started, "I must apologize. This behavior was unacceptable and beneath us." He glared around at the personnel with raised weapons. "Put those down immediately. Ms. Largo had every right to be upset at us, and we deserved the chastisement."
Even to her ears that admission sounded bitter. She just glared out at him from the side of her eyes, still trying to get her temper under control. The admission didn't really change anything.
"No. This is my fault." Miguel said, rubbing his face, eyes closed. "McKenna Largo, I apologize. I have no excuse for what I said, much less how crudely I stated it. You haven’t done anything wrong. You and your people have adapted to everything we have asked." He shrugged and McKenna was abruptly tired of all of it.
She cut off whatever he might have said next. "Whatever. It's done. We know the weapons work and should be more of a surprise than our guns. What now?"
Her people had moved around her in an almost protective manner, but mostly they were there to support her.
