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  And Lt didn’t have anything to say to that.

  CHAPTER 4

  Babe pushed through the roll up door and picked his way across the crowded corridor between the exterior and interior wall of the warehouse.

  The survivors inside, refugees from a dozen other communities had built tents, tarps and lean to's against the walls so that the space was full of human bodies, metal pots and braziers burning wood that filled the air with a choking haze and the smells of waste and desperation.

  He was glad of the helmet, though the memory of the smell lingered in his nostrils from the first time he entered the building.

  There was more activity this time.

  People moved out of his way, and a murmur in the crowd preceded him, so that the people stopped and stared as he passed. A couple of small children waved grubby hands and Babe waved back.

  Lt had led them here at the suggestion of Doc, a prisoner they had rescued from a train ferrying alien supplies. Babe and the other members of the squad wondered if it was a trap, but Doc held out the promise of a hidden lab where they could find weapons and supplies in their fight against the Lick.

  Babe expected automatic rifles, maybe some RPG's, but Doc had gone above and beyond. He had access to a hidden room, the interior of the warehouse which the refugees hadn't been able to enter. Steph, aka Oakley had the key they needed.

  She cut a hole in the wall.

  Doc delivered magic suits of armor, or at least what seemed like magic to a group that hadn't been able to use technology in years.

  The Suits were bio-mechanical, paired with the wearer through nanobot technology and so far as Babe was concerned, the weapon he needed to carry out mass alien destruction.

  Babe moved toward the doorway with the hole beside it. The two refugees turned civilian guards stood aside to let him pass, staring in awe at the armor he wore.

  "Boys," Babe acknowledged them.

  "Sir," they responded.

  He wasn't sure if he could get used to that. The respect, he could handle.

  His notoriety came from Lt, who christened him with a nickname, just as he did everyone he met.

  Babe, short for Babe Ruth, and all because Lt shoved a baseball bat in the big man's hands and told him to pound on some Lick prisoners.

  His field promotion came about because Lt was dead, killed in an attack on an alien base to save Lutz.

  "Doc!" Babe called.

  Doc moved from behind a row of cabinets, a soldering iron in one hand, a magnifying glass over one eye giving him a cyclopean look.

  The older man lifted his head so he could peer under the lens, as if it was just a bi-focal perched on his nose and the newsprint was too close.

  "Almost done," Doc called.

  He spun something around and Lutz came with it. Babe couldn't help but smile at his friend in the hot seat being outfitted with a set of armor formerly worn by one of their comrades.

  The Suits were incredible, but in short supply, and Doc had told him he didn't think there would be more of them unless they found another cache.

  The armor covered Lutz from toe to neck, just to the red irritated injection site on his carotid artery.

  "Can't move yet," Lutz told him.

  "Wait for it," Babe advised, excitement lacing his voice.

  "It's going to be just a few more minutes," Doc said.

  He cradled the helmet in one hand, making a small adjustment to the interior with a tiny screwdriver.

  "I had to scratch around for enough nano-tech for this one to work," he said and looked up at Babe.

  "I don't know if there will be more."

  Babe understood.

  "We'll try not to get shot."

  Doc nodded and went back to the helmet.

  "Try that anyway," he said. "I'm still working on uncovering other projects, but until I find them, we're at the mercy of how careful you are in a fight."

  Lutz lifted one arm away from the stand holding him and stared at it in wonder.

  "Sometimes we don't have a choice in a fight, Doc. This is so cool," he beamed at Babe.

  "It gets better," Babe told him and turned to Doc. "Are you coming to the meeting?"

  "I could do better work in here," Doc said.

  "Sorry Doc, I didn't mean to make that sound like a question."

  Doc stopped working on the helmet and passed it to Lutz who held it in both hands.

  "I said I could do better work in here," Doc lined his tools up on the orderly desktop. "I didn't say I wouldn't go."

  "The others are waiting on us."

  Doc nodded.

  "I don't know what good I'll do there."

  "You just tell them what you told me," said Babe.

  "Come down," Doc instructed Lutz. "It would be just as simple for you tell them."

  Lutz took a step off the raised platform like Frankenstein's monster, legs stiff as he moved them for the first time. Then he limbered up and squatted, movement coming easy.

  "You have a credibility I don't," Babe answered.

  "Babe, can you see this?" Lutz jumped and almost sent his head through the fifteen-foot ceiling.

  "Put your helmet on before you break your head, Lutz," Babe ordered him. "Didn't you hear Doc say we're low on the nanojuice."

  "I didn't call it nanojuice."

  "Same thing," said Babe.

  Lutz donned the helmet.

  "Doc, can I get some games on the screen in here?"

  "Games?"

  "Yeah, when I was a kid, I had this gaming system. I could play all sorts of football, soccer, first person shooter."

  "Lutz?"

  "Yeah Babe?"

  "You're going to get plenty of chances to do some shooting in person when we go after the Licks."

  Lutz turned his reflective face plate toward Babe and studied him, as if the idea had just occurred.

  "Oh yeah."

  "Come on Doc," said Babe as he clapped his friend on the shoulder. "We'll escort you."

  "No one in," Doc ordered the two civilian guards.

  "Yes Sir!" they snapped back.

  "We really need to get the door fixed," said Doc as he trundled through the inside village toward the meeting space outside.

  CHAPTER 5

  “What the fuck is this shit?”

  Lt stormed into the small round room. He gasped at the lifelike holographic projections that dotted the cold metal floor.

  “This is a closed meeting, Lieutenant.”

  “Is this him?”

  Lt turned toward a glowing pixilated column of light that looked like a white haired grizzled old man with a well-groomed beard.

  “Him who, Kris Kringle? The guy who destroyed the Lick ship and saved your bacon?”

  “Admiral,” the hologram answered.

  “Admiral Santa,” Lt said. “Sir.”

  “Would you believe our bacon did not need to be saved?”

  Lt glanced around at the other holographs.

  “Ya’ll must have had different seats to the show I was watching then, because your ass was about to be fried.”

  "Get him out of here."

  "This is a private meeting."

  Lt heard the holograph's grumbling, but he couldn't help but stare in wonder, blue eyes glowing in the reflected columns of light.

  Holographic communication. He had heard of it. Before the invasion. But he had never seen it in action.

  So much money went into the technology to stop the Licks, but those advances never made it to the population at large, or if they did, it was to small specialized segments.

  Not to him.

  He counted the eight men and four women glaring back at him in pixelated anger.

  "Why're you so pissed at me?" he put a hand on his chest. "Seems like you should be thanking me."

  "We had the skirmish under control," the man with the white beard countered.

  "What kind of control was that?"

  "Dawes!" white beard shouted and specks of spittle flew out of his mouth.
Lt watched in fascination as electronic representations of the spit arced in the light and disappeared from view on the floor.

  "Did you fucking see that?" he pointed and grinned over his shoulder at Annie.

  "You need to go," Dawes instructed him. "Clear the room."

  Lt crossed his arms across his chest.

  "Ya'll may be okay at space fighting, but first man puts his hand on me draws back a stump, got it?"

  He glared at the two unarmed guards that stepped through the door.

  "Seems to me if you're discussing what to do with me, I ought to have some say in it."

  "You will," said Annie as she stepped across the room. "But Captain's orders. You need to clear the room."

  "I'm warning you Warbucks."

  Lt dropped into a crouch, hands up and ready. Annie smiled. She reached forward, snagged his wrist and twisted as she spun around under it.

  Lt tried to jerk her off her feet, pull her into a submission hold, but she folded around behind his bac and put his wrist between his shoulder blades.

  "Damn Warbucks!"

  "You said any man would get a stump," she huffed in his ear. "What about a woman?"

  "Uncle," Lt tried to stand up straight and pull his arm free, but she lifted higher and kept him bent over as she walked him toward the door.

  "I want to go back to earth," Lt called over his shoulder. "There's still fighting to do. This ain't over yet."

  He wasn't sure if they heard him, but he saw the beams flicker in a power surge before settling back into the shifting columns of light.

  "This ship ain't whole?" he asked.

  Annie let the door close behind them before she let him go. He whipped around, but the two large men had settled in front of the opening to prevent his re-entry.

  "We sustained damage in the battle," she told him. "Come on."

  She started down the narrow corridor and didn't wait for him to follow.

  "There's someone I want you to meet."

  CHAPTER 6

  "Who the fuck are you?"

  Lt squinted at the grease smudged man pulling himself out of the guts of the ship and wiping his ick covered hands on a dirty rag.

  "I asked you a fucking question numbnuts."

  Lt snorted.

  "You think that's funny?"

  The man was as short as he was wide, not an ounce of fat on him, though Lt wondered how such broad shoulders could fit into the tiny spaces he knew ran under the ship's corridors.

  "Alright fireplug we ain't getting off on the best foot. You might want to reconsider your approach before I take offense."

  "Offense?" the man blustered, the narrow eyes above his pug nose growing wide. "You're on my ship, you son of a bitch. I don't care who's escorting your VIP ass around, if I ask you a fucking question, you drop everything you're doing and give me an answer."

  "Told you he'd like you," she smirked.

  "Ya'll making this pretty hard on me," said Lt.

  "What?" she asked.

  "Which one of you I'm gonna punch out first."

  The pug nosed man stepped closer.

  "You want to take a fucking swing at me, new meat."

  "Name's Bill Bonney," Lt closed the distance between them so that the man's chin was almost touching his chest. "Lot of folks call me Lt."

  "Billy the kid?" the short man mused.

  "Nobody calls me that. Least no one that doesn't want a concussion and stiches. Ya'll got a pretty good Doc up here?"

  "HIs name is William," said the woman.

  "Doc's got my name," said Lt. "Think I'm gonna like him."

  "She's talking about me numbnuts," the man in front of him spit. "I'm Bill too."

  "Bill too."

  "Just Bill."

  "Alright Just Bill, you want to start over and shake hands and shit, or you just want to come out swinging."

  "They call me Wild Bill."

  Lt shook his head.

  "Every Bill I ever met had this fucked up nickname he wanted folks to call him. Wild Bill. Buffalo Bill. Pecos Bill. Why do you think that is Bill Too? You think them fellas is just afraid their simple name means they're simple men, and they got to put a spin on it."

  "Wild Bill, not Bill Too," the short man growled.

  "What about it Too? You a simple man?"

  Too sent a roundhouse punch up toward Lt's chin, but he telegraphed the blow, twisting at the waist and balling up his fist. Lt ducked his head back and watched the grit stained knuckles sail past the end of his nose.

  He let the man overbalance with the rotation of the swing, then rammed into him with his shoulder and sent him sprawling to the deck.

  The woman stepped between them, grinning.

  "Did you think that was going to happen?" she reached down and lifted Bill Too up by his arm.

  The short man shook his head and stared at Lt.

  "Thought you would take a swing at me, for sure."

  Lt squinted at the two of them.

  "This the kind of games you play up here?"

  "Games?" said the woman. "Test, more like it."

  "What kind of test?" Lt asked.

  "The kind you pass or fail," Bill Too answered.

  Lt waited for more, but neither offered.

  "Well," he said after a moment. "Which is it? Do I pass or fail?"

  "Neither," said the woman. "You get to move on to the next round."

  CHAPTER 7

  The meeting went sideways from the start and Babe knew why.

  Jake's Dad.

  The man had shown up a week ago at the head of a column of bandits he called warriors with the intent to take the warehouse from Burmage and the refugees.

  Jake did a good job of heading off that fight, Babe thought, just by being. Turns out he and the old man hadn't seen each other since the nights the aliens invaded earth and destroyed the East Coast.

  Family reunion aside, now Jake's Dad considered his son like he would his own personal super man, and Babe didn't like it.

  He could tell Weber didn't either. He kept stealing glances at the veteran of the Mars campaign, and his blank faceplate was turned toward Jake and his Dad the whole time. Babe imagined the man wasn't even blinking underneath his suit.

  "We have an advantage," Jake's Dad was saying. "We need to press it."

  "WE don't have an advantage, Russel," Burmage seethed. "We have the start of something and we should guard it."

  The men gathered on both sides of the campfire muttered at each other.

  Russel had the numbers, that much was clear. He had relieved the prisoners of being prisoner’s moments after he arrived, and instead of fighting, his men set up camp outside of the fence line.

  They had been good neighbors for ten days, but tonight, they were all inside to attend the meeting. Babe didn't like it.

  The squad was outnumbered twenty to one.

  And with Jake up beside his Dad, Babe wasn't sure which way he would flop if things went sour.

  "I know there's more in there," Russel ignored Burmage. "More weapons, more things we could use against the damn aliens. You've been too afraid to use it."

  "We just found it!" Burmage threw up his hands.

  "You didn't find it," Doc spoke up and Babe shifted. This was the part he was waiting for. "I found it and I put it in the hands of the man I thought would be best in charge of it."

  Russel shot a glance at Babe.

  "And now that man is dead," he said. "Sorry for your loss."

  A thick hand reached out and gripped Chief by the wrist.

  "My son told me he was an excellent leader and we're all worse off for him being gone. But now you need someone strong in charge."

  This time, the glance stayed on Babe, daring him to speak up.

  "Someone with leadership experience," Russel kept going. "Someone who knows how to deploy weapons and has learned the strategies and tactics it’s going to take to beat the Licks for once and for all."