Don groaned, and one of the soldiers went over to help him up. The other two kept aim on the alien, while the fourth raced up to Bill’s side. “We have to go now, sir.”
“My daughter—”
The metal door groaned open beside him, and Beth stumbled out, blinking wide, terrified eyes. “Is it over?” she asked.
“No, ma’am. It’s not dead, just immobilized. We have a boat waiting to take you three back to the Royal.”
“We can’t,” Bill said. “There are more people inside.”
“We’ll take care of it,” one of the other soldiers said. “How many more of these things are there?”
“Just that one,” Don said, limping over to them and pointing to Bill. “He killed the other.”
“You killed it?” the soldier in front of them asked, sounding worried. “With what?”
“My nine mil,” Don replied. “Billy-Bob pegged a lucky shot in one of its eyeballs.”
“I see... well, you can tell the captain all about it back at the Royal.”
“There’s four more survivors just through those doors,” Don said, pointing. “One is injured.”
“Show me,” the Marine said.
“This way,” Don replied.
Chapter 21
Standing on the beach with two of the four Marines, Bill stared at their boat, a black tubular thing with an outboard motor attached.
“I’ve only got room for four passengers because of the gear we’re packing, and one of them’s gotta be me to man the tiller,” the ranking soldier said. “Wounded take priority. Who are the other two gonna be?”
“I can stay here, soldier,” Bill said.
The man hesitated before inclining his head in a nod. “Good—anyone else?”
Don elbowed Bill sharply in the ribs. “He’s a Marine, not a soldier.”
“What’s the difference?” Beth asked.
Don snorted. “You mean besides the sticks up their arses?” He shrugged. “Better gear.” Don looked to the corporal with a small smile and nodded. “I’ll also stay. Just give me a weapon.”
“Negative. Arming civvies is against protocol.”
“I’m not a civvie, Corporal. I did two tours in Afghanistan.”
“Army or Marines?”
“Army.”
“Well, no one’s perfect. Protocol stands, however. This is strictly a recon and rescue op. We’re not authorized to use lethal force.”
“I’ll stay, too,” Bill said.
Beth balked at that. “Dad!”
Growing impatient, the Marine nodded and said, “We’ll take the wounded man and his kids. Rest of you will have to wait here for the next boat.”
“That’s fine,” Bill replied.
“Dekker, keep watch.”
“Copy, boss,” the other Marine replied without turning. He was already watching their backs through the night vision scope on his helmet, his shotgun at the ready.
Beth sidled up to Bill and wrapped her arms around his chest. He draped an arm over her shoulders, wincing at the sharp stabs that movement provoked from his muscles. The puncture wounds left by the alien claws hurt worse than jellyfish stings.
Bill turned to look up the beach at his resort, but he couldn’t see anything through the artificial night. His imagination filled the blanks with corpses lying in sticky puddles of entrails and blood. The Koa Kai had been a money pit from the start, but now that aliens had turned it into a human slaughterhouse, it was over. No one would want to stay in a room where the previous guests had all died horribly.
Of course, he was probably getting ahead of himself. Bill glanced up at the perfect darkness. A massive spaceship was still hovering overhead, blocking out the sun and most of the sky, and no one had any idea why they’d come or what they wanted. For all anyone knew, this was the aliens’ recon mission, too, and the real invasion was yet to come.
One thing stuck out as particularly strange in Bill’s brain, however: why send down unarmed, unarmored soldiers? If they could even be called soldiers. They seemed intelligent, but so far they’d only hunted and terrorized tourists. Bill wondered if that might be the point. Maybe this was some kind of recreational hunting party and humans were the stags. But that seemed like a strange goal with the vast distances between stars and the sheer amount of energy and time it must have taken to cross them. Surely recreational interests would be confined to less expensive trips.
Or perhaps these aliens were just so advanced that flying between stars was no big deal to them. They might have something like a warp drive from Star Trek.
Bill heard splashing and muted voices behind him as Kayla said goodbye to James and her children; then more splashing as the Marine guarding the beach helped push the zodiac into the water. Moments later the outboard motor started up with a roar.
Bill glanced over his shoulder to see the boat jetting out over the gleaming silver tips of gentle swells. The crescent moon had vanished, having risen above the spaceship, but there was just enough starlight shining in from the band of clear sky below the alien craft to give them light to see by. The Marines had ordered them not to use their flashlights or phone lights, in case that proved to be a beacon drawing more aliens to them. Bill absently wondered what they thought the noise of that outboard motor would do.
He hoped they’d send more boats and more Marines when they came back. As far as Bill was concerned, recon was the wrong type of mission. This should have been a doomsday-style operation with the whole damn cavalry coming to shore.
And when it came right down to it, what really bothered Bill about all of this was that it wasn’t an invasion or a war. It was something else. And he had no damn clue what it could be.
A terrible suspicion slithered through his veins. He tried not to pay attention to it, but he couldn’t deny what had happened to him. Whatever the aliens were doing here, chances were good that it had something to do with what they’d done to him.
His skin crawled with the memory. One of the creatures had placed a foul-smelling hoof-mouth over his, pricking his cheeks and jaw, and forcing his mouth open with a French kiss from hell; then something cold and wet had entered his mouth. It had tasted like plant nectar, sweet and surprisingly pleasant despite the revolting source.
One thing was for sure, as soon as he got to that Navy cruiser, he would have the ship’s doctor check him out and make sure he hadn’t been infected with any parasites or other microbes.
Visions of the movie Alien flashed through his mind, and he imagined a hideous creature gestating in his stomach only to tear him open on its way out.
Bill trembled.
“Are you okay?” Beth asked quietly.
He swallowed his rising bile and nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
Feeling watched, Bill turned and found Don staring at him—his eyes pinched into slits and gleaming with pinpricks of light. Bill wondered if Don was thinking about the same thing.
Feeling suddenly naked, Bill looked away. What would happen to him when the doctors found out what the aliens had done? Would he be studied like a lab rat until they learned why? What if they never let him go?
Those creatures had given the same treatment to James, and who knew how many others, but what was different about them that had caused the aliens to spare them?
Long minutes passed in darkness. At some point the Marine guarding the shore answered his radio, conversing briefly with other members of his team. Bill guessed he was talking with the two who’d stayed up at the resort to look for more survivors.
“Copy that. The beach is secure. No sign of the enemy.”
“Did anyone else survive?” Bill asked the Marine when he finished speaking.
“Six more,” the Marine replied.
Bill blinked in shock. He’d had over a hundred guests. To have just six survivors plus the seven that made it to the beach—thirteen in all—meant that almost everyone had been killed. “What about the rest of the island?”
“No way to know, sir. The Royal is s
ending reinforcements. Team Two is at the resort next door. They only suffered one casualty.”
“Great,” Bill muttered. The Marriott had escaped with a clean slate while his resort was turned into a mausoleum. At least there’ll be fewer people to write bad reviews. Bill’s conscience recoiled with that thought, and he chided himself.
“Six others made it,” Beth said slowly. “Maybe Toby is one them?”
“Yeah, maybe,” Bill replied.
It wasn’t more than a few minutes before the survivors came tromping down the beach with a Marine escort. Flashlights bobbed beneath the Marines’ shotgun barrels. Apparently they could break their own rules. Bill guessed that those people couldn’t see well enough to keep up a steady pace without those flashlights. As they drew near, Beth broke the rules, too, flicking on her phone light to scan the survivors’ faces—
Bloody faces with four welts each, just like Bill’s and James’. Bill vaguely recognized a few of them. The bossy matriarch was there, but no sign of her family. Her eyes were glassy and vacant. Melanie was also there, with the same four welts on her face. She averted her gaze when she saw Bill. Perhaps she felt ashamed for running and hiding in her room. She’d done that twice—once abandoning Bill in the process, and the second time squandering her chance to escape.
“Where’s Toby?” Beth burst into tears and stormed up to the nearest of the two escorting Marines. “Where is he?”
“He who, ma’am?”
“A young man, tall and skinny, with long blond hair and blue eyes.”
“I’m sorry, but these are the only survivors we found.”
“Did you see him?”
“Can’t say. Some of the bodies won’t be easy to ID. Try to remain calm, ma’am. There’s a chance he escaped.”
The Marine brushed by her, walking down until he reached the water’s edge. “Dekker, keep eyes on them until evac gets here. We need to get back to the package.”
“Copy that. Is it secure?”
“Tranqued and tied up, but no way to know how long that will last.”
“It’s alone?”
“Negative, Team Two is standing guard.”
A distant roar interrupted their conversation, echoing out from multiple sources. Bill turned to look but saw only the faintest gleam of the approaching zodiacs. By his count, there were at least five coming to shore. The Marines left, running back up the beach.
A minute later the boats rode up on shore, and five more teams of Marines jumped out. Bill and the other survivors were ushered into three of the zodiacs. They got their feet wet, but Bill was still barefoot, so he didn’t mind.
In a matter of seconds, they were jetting out over gleaming black water toward a jagged silhouette on the horizon. The Port Royal. Bill and Beth rode with Don. Bill noticed that Don’s eyes never left him. Growing fed up, he rounded on the other man, and shouted to be heard over the droning sound of the motor: “What’s your problem?”
“No problem,” Don shouted back. “Just curious: why did they let you live?”
“Not just me,” Bill replied.
“Exactly. You all have the same welts on your faces. What did they do to you?
“Nothing,” Bill replied. “You saved me before they could rip my guts out.”
“I’m not so sure you needed saving,” Don replied.
The Marine steering the boat watched them with dark, darting eyes, and Bill realized he was in trouble. Visions of endless interrogations, medical exams, and tests swam through his head.
Part 2 - Containment
Chapter 22
—Five Days Later—
Aboard the USS Port Royal
“Commander Wilde has cleared the survivors for debriefing,” Morris said as he entered the bridge.
Captain Reed glanced at his second-in-command. “No sign of infectious agents?”
“Not so far, sir.”
Reed sighed. “Good. Unfortunately, that’s not going to lift the CDC’s quarantine order.”
“No, sir, but it should help put your mind at ease. Would you like to debrief the survivors or should I?”
“We’ll do it together. Lieutenant Peterson, how do you stand?”
“I stand ready to relieve you, sir.”
“Then I stand relieved. Attention on deck, Lieutenant Peterson has the bridge.”
Peterson stood at attention and saluted. The captain returned the salute and then turned and started for the exit. “Commander Morris, walk with me,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
The captain opened the door and ducked through the entrance of the bridge, heading for the stairwell. Their boots rang on the metal deck and then on the stairs as they headed down.
The survivors were all still isolated in sick bay, with Commander Wilde, the ship’s surgeon, and his head corpsman, Chief Petty Officer Miller, but those security measures were woefully inadequate as far as Reed was concerned. The Port Royal wasn’t equipped to contain a possible contagion, much less an alien one, or for that matter the actual alien they had locked in the Port Royal’s brig. The best they could do was make sure that no one left the ship now that it was compromised. None of the other ships that had subsequently arrived from Pearl Harbor had taken on survivors or allowed their Marines to return after going ashore. Those teams were occupied securing critical areas of the island and gathering up the survivors while avoiding enemy contact as much as possible. CDC specialists from the mainland were en route to conduct more thorough testing, but it would be a while before they arrived.
Meanwhile, everyone was just thanking their gods that the aliens had decided to land on an island. But Reed wasn’t reassured by that. Just because they’d chosen to land on an island didn’t mean they wouldn’t change their minds and decide to land somewhere else, too. And if they were dealing with some kind of pathogen, the CDC needed to get ahead of it and develop countermeasures while they still had the chance.
Before the captain and Commander Morris arrived at sick bay, they reached a sealed bulkhead flanked by a pair of Marine privates.
The Marines saluted. Reed returned the salute but hesitated before ordering them to open the door. This entire section had been sealed off for quarantine. Were five days enough to determine that they weren’t dealing with an infectious agent? And if not, would such a pathetic quarantine even matter? They didn’t have Hazmat suits on board, and this door had to be opened periodically to provide rations to the people inside the containment area.
“Open it up, Private.”
“Aye, sir.” The door swung wide with a metallic groan, and Reed walked through. The hall was lined with bunk rooms, currently assigned to civilian survivors and the Marines from the recon teams. The captain resisted the urge to hold his breath as he strolled down the corridor with his XO. When they reached the door to sick bay, he knocked smartly and announced himself: “Captain Reed.”
The locking mechanism clunked as someone opened the door from the other side. A metallic groan issued from the hinges and Commander Wilde appeared, looking tired and miserable. “Captain,” he said, saluting.
Reed saluted back. “Carry on. You don’t look well, Commander. Is there something I should be aware of?”
“No, sir, just a lack of sleep. Chief Miller and I have been working around the clock running tests.”
Reed stepped inside with his XO. “And?”
“Nothing, sir. No immune response. We found no foreign bodies or cells in the cultures or stains.”
The captain frowned. “That doesn’t jibe well with what the civilians reported when they came aboard. They all indicated that there was a direct transfer of saliva or other fluids from the invaders.”
“Yes, well, be that as it may, whatever they ingested was either excreted soon afterward, or else it looks exactly like a known cell type, but that’s highly unlikely. Extraterrestrials would have taken a different evolutionary path, so they wont’t have recognizable cell structures.”
“And what if the foreign cells are hiding
in a specific place?” Commander Morris asked.
Doctor Wilde’s crinkled face grew even more lined as he appeared to consider that. He shook his head. “We sampled blood, saliva, feces, and urine. We also performed ultrasounds and biopsies. If the invading cells are hiding, they’d have to be hiding somewhere that’s hard to get to—in the bone marrow or the brain, for example. But even if that were the case, none of the survivors have shown any symptoms or immune response. Whatever they were exposed to, it appears that it was benign, but only time will confirm that.”
“How much time?” Reed asked.
“With viruses on Earth, incubation and testing window periods can range anywhere from days to years.”
“Years?” Reed echoed.
“Yes, sir.”
“How...” Reed trailed off, his mouth feeling suddenly dry as he imagined being isolated aboard the Port Royal for years without shore leave. Assuming aliens didn’t land en masse before then and make all their quarantine protocols moot. Working some moisture into his mouth, he asked, “Testing windows period—what does that mean?”
“It’s the amount of time after initial contact with a pathogen that it takes to be able to detect it with a test.”
“If viruses on Earth have testing windows anywhere from a few days to a few years, then you really can’t say with any degree of confidence that no one on this ship is infected.”
“That’s correct, sir.”
“Then there’s no way to know for sure when it might be safe to lift the quarantine.”
Wilde frowned, his pale blue eyes collapsing into anxious slits. “We’ve done everything we can for now. I’ve cleared the subjects for casual contact, but that doesn’t mean we should lift any of our protocols. While we can’t contain an airborne pathogen, we can contain just about every other type by carefully limiting contact. Many pathogens on Earth are exchanged through bodily fluids. If we are dealing with an infectious agent, then that’s probably the type we’re up against—based on the aliens’ method of delivery.”
Under Darkness (A Sci-Fi Thriller) (Scott Standalones Book 1) Page 8
