DustOff Page 7

  "We're not dead," one of the women called out to him. "You can go back and tell him. We're not coming home."

  "The children are here too," said Brother John. "And I'm not a Baptist. Another thing my brother and I disagree on."

  "I don't give a shit about your religious preferences Baptist. I came to get some revenge for folks you killed. Turned out you didn't kill 'em, you was building a harem. No skin off my nose. But they're going back with me all the same."

  "Harem!" John barked. "Is that what you think?"

  He circled around the clear space between the RV's and came closer to Lt.

  "They're not my wives," he said, lowering his voice. "That's my brother's vision of what the world should be like now. But I'd like to hear about the Suit you're wearing. I haven't seen one before. And just pictures from when I was a kid."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Lt opened his mouth to tell the young man he didn’t give a shit about what kind of pictures he looked at when he was a kid.

  Could have been the sticky pages of a decade old Playboy stolen from under his dad’s bed, could have been a muscle car mag picked up for a couple of bucks at a corner convenience store along with a cold soda and spicy jerky.

  But he didn’t get the chance.

  A sentry sprinted from the woods.

  “Incoming!” someone screamed.

  A man in camouflage rags ran through the trees and darted under the bridge.

  Like ants in an anthill that’s been kicked by a child, the other men in the encircled camp scrambled into action.

  They darted into the woods, dashed into hollowed out sections of earth under the RV’s, while the girls squeezed through the narrow gap opening and knelt in the shadow of the concrete, weapons aimed at the clear sky.

  John jogged past Lt and Annie.

  “Licks,” he said in a simple, matter of fact voice. “Follow me.”

  They did as he asked, matching pace as the thin man ran past the group on one side of the bridge and ducked under the steel beam girders on the far side.

  “Patrols don’t normally come out this far,” he whispered. “We’ve been in that clearing for a long time and they never bother us.”

  Lt glanced over his shoulder.

  The encampment looked old and abandoned, and he figured that was by design now.

  Just a grouping of old vehicles gathered together a long time ago and forgotten out here in the woods.

  Except for the churned earth.

  There were tracks of muddy ruts from hundreds of feet that led in different directions. Down to the creek for water. Into the woods for hunting.

  Even here, under the bridge, which would make a good place for shade when the sun was boiling the humidity in the atmosphere.

  Tracks so familiar that the people who lived there might not even notice to pay attention to them, except when it rained.

  But from the air, he wondered if it looked like a sign pointing the aliens to human habitation.

  He lifted his blaster and put his gloved finger on the trigger guard.

  “You ever do much flying back on earth?” he asked Annie. “Other than the last time I saw you do it.”

  “You’re counting that as flying?” she smirked. “Yes.”

  He pointed two fingers at his eyes and then at the muddled rut they had jogged on to cower under the bridge.

  “You see that from the air pretty good?”

  He watched her eyes focus on the path, then moved, roaming over the various twists and turns it took, just as his eyes had. Creek. Woods. Bridge. And further.

  He could see there was a worn path around the RV’s that she spied. Great for sentry walking a tight perimeter.

  But like a bullseye ring painted around the encampment.

  “It’s going to be very evident,” she said.

  Lt nodded.

  “That’s what I figured.”

  The hissing rush of a hovercraft patrol whizzed up the road, following the clear lines that Licks liked to use for navigation.

  Twelve feet off the ground, wind whisking the dead leaves and dust that had started to layer of the asphalt since their arrival and cars stopped rolling.

  Lt couldn’t count how many in the open-air cockpit. They were too close.

  But he assumed six or eight.

  In the hovercraft.

  The working hovercraft.

  “Warbucks, how you feel about walking? Your legs still tired as hell?”

  She nodded and shifted in a crouch.

  Lt turned to John.

  “Ya’ll stay out of this,” he squinted at the man, though the look was lost under the reflective faceplate. “I’ve got some fucking business to conduct.”

  The tone of his voice brooked no dissent and John shifted further back in the shadows under the overpass.

  Lt shifted out from under the bridge and ran in a hunched crouch, rifle gripped tight in his gloved fingers.

  He listened for the sound of the hovercraft floating above the trees. It was hard to hear at first.

  Their landing had set a couple of trees on fire, caught in the backburn of the rear mounted plasma rockets that controlled their descent.

  Though control was a strong word for what actually happened.

  "Here they come," he whispered to himself.

  He was the only one around to hear it.

  The radios weren't working again.

  He'd tried it after they landed.

  Crashed, he corrected and settled the blaster against the edge of the tree.

  Slivers of bark rained down on the hard-packed ground, peppering the green moss with gray flakes.

  The sound of the hovercraft grew slowly as it approached, like distant freeway noise picking up as daylight turned a commute into a free for all.

  He saw the glint of sunshine off the carbon alloy hull, dulled by the grime of smog as it drifted over the trees and dropped Lick soldiers into the clearing to explore the wreckage.

  Six of them. Taller than a man. Covered in black or silver jumpsuits and carrying lasers.

  The only thing he knew that could harm his armor. He'd have to be careful.

  The color meant rank, but since he hadn't spied much on the alien invaders, he didn't know which was more important.

  But size seemed to matter to the Lizard looking men.

  The big guys were the ones they followed.

  He lined up his sights on the largest one in silver and sent a blast through its head. It popped with a smoky hiss, a noise that made the others turn and stare.

  It only bought a second's hesitation, just a fraction of time. It was enough.

  He dropped two more before they pinpointed his position. He got another as they sent the first bolt into the bole next to his head.

  Lt ducked back, hiding the bulk of his armor behind the trunk. The hovercraft whizzed out of the clearing and circled back on his position.

  He raised his blaster and sent three lancets of plasma blasts into the shape steering it.

  A seven-foot reptile body flopped over the side of the craft and smacked into the ground with a wet thud.

  The hovercraft spun upside down and slammed into one of the two Lick soldier's left, splatting him in a splurt of goo and gore that squirted across the clearing and covered the last Lick standing in black ichor.

  Lt rolled on his stomach from behind the tree, aimed and sent a blast into center mass.

  It plopped backwards in a sprawl. Lt watched the leg twitch in a death throe, then roamed the perimeter.

  "Not bad," he said to himself as he got up and checked again.

  It would have been cleaner with a second or third gun. And the element of surprise helped.

  Maybe like a crash, any ambush you could walk away from should be considered a success, he thought.

  Then he went to check on Warbucks.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Ping. Ping. Plunk. They were shooting him again.

  Not with bullets.

  They tried that
the first night and only the first time.

  It cost them one life of some guy standing in the path of the ricochet, and Babe was glad they couldn't see him smirk behind the faceplate of his helmet.

  They graduated to throwing things. Then a slingshot.

  Ping. Ping. Plunk. Ping. Ping. Plunk.

  He wasn't sure what they used for ammo. Tiny pieces of metal. Chunks of rock.

  The bandits took turn sending shots into him.

  He was tied to a tree. More accurate, he was chained to a tree, arms stretched behind him around a massive trunk of an ancient oak.

  Chief held a blaster to his head while they did it.

  Babe could see him standing on the edge of the room, lost half in the shadows as a fire burned in a trench pit in the floor.

  The room was like a log cabin built against the trees, with the giant oak in the rear of the room.

  It would have been a super cool place to hang, he thought. If he wasn't tied up.

  And the company was better.

  The leader was a small man with a small face that narrowed to a point that ended at the tip of his nose.

  Babe bet Lt would have called him Hatchet, although that sounded too tough for the weasel looking man. It would have been more creative than Rat or Ferret, but he couldn't think of it at the moment.

  His wrists hurt. His shoulders hurt.

  He was starving and the nano inside him were dying.

  Babe licked his chapped lips and tried to remember the last time he ate.

  Days. Stringy squirrel meat boiled in a week stew with dandelion stems. Salted. Peppered. The only flavors he could remember.

  Hatchet face sat eating bacon.

  At least it looked like bacon. Babe couldn't smell it through the helmet, but there were wild boar in the woods.

  He supposed it could be a crispy slice of warm dripping heaven.

  Saliva gushed inside his cheeks and he almost choked.

  They were deciding what to do with him. It wasn't like they could send him back, but Babe knew the debate was ongoing.

  Should they team with Russel? Should they combine forces with the man, and split the spoils?

  It lasted for hours, with each man in the room given a chance to talk.

  Democracy in action, Babe thought. Though they did not ask him his opinion.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Burmage crowed in triumph.

  “There’s more,” he said to Doc as he glanced over his shoulder.

  “What is it?”

  Burmage leaned back and showed him the computer screen.

  “I wondered why the systems in here worked, but no where else,” he said. “We’re in a Faraday cage. And there’s more.”

  Doc leaned around him and studied the screen.

  “Is that real?”

  Burmage keyed in a sequence on the computer.

  “We’re about to find out.”

  A doorway in the floor on the edge of the room made a beeping sound and slid open.

  “Did you know this was here?”

  Burmage shook his head.

  “I never had clearance for the blueprints.”

  “I did,” said Doc. “And no one told me about this place.”

  Doc peered at a set of steps that led down.

  Doc swallowed and stepped into the darkness.

  The first step lit up with a small LED as his foot landed, lighting the way forward.

  “How many of these are there?” Burmage whispered from his shoulder.

  “Thirteen,” said Doc. “Thirteen steps.”

  “I meant hidden rooms.”

  “Oh,” Doc answered. “Let’s start with this one.”

  He took another step forward, fascinated at the path below him.

  His head was bathed in darkness, but he could see by the soft glow near his feet.

  He could also feel Burmage breathing on the back of his neck, urging him forward until he reached the bottom of the stairs.

  Lights flickered on in a line where the wall met the ceiling, bouncing off reflective panels back into the room.

  It was an oblong shape that ran thirty feet away from them and spread out fifteen feet on either side.

  The shadow of a man stretched toward them.

  Doc made a gurgling sound and stumbled backwards up the stairs.

  It was too much for Burmage.

  He made a small shriek and pounded up and away to make good his escape.

  Doc took a deep breath to add his scream to the fleeing man’s but held it as he saw the shadow didn’t move.

  He scrambled up to his feet and took a tentative step back toward the room.

  “Hello?” he called out.

  But there was no answer.

  Doc stepped back into the room.

  More lights flickered on, revealing what had frightened him.

  A row of men hanging from hooks.

  Not men, thought Doc. More Suits.

  It wasn’t Suits.

  One of the guards from the doorway crashed down the stairs, battered AK-47 held to his shoulder as he rushed to defend Doc.

  “Doc!” he shouted.

  “It’s okay,” said Doc. “I’m all right.”

  The guard stared in wonder at the gleaming metal on racks in the center of the room.

  “What are those?” he gasped.

  “Our key to winning,” said Doc.

  He stepped into the room to examine his newfound treasure.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “That was amazing,” John stuttered as he stumbled out from under the shadow of the bridge, rifle held loose in his hands.

  “I get that a lot,” Lt smirked. “You all right?”

  He lifted his faceplate and squinted at Warbucks. She nodded.

  “The view is better when I’m not upside down and sideways,” she said. “You’re pretty good with that.”

  “Lots of practice,” he hefted the blaster and turned to point at the still floating disc in the sky.

  “I got us a ride,” he said. “Think you can fly it?”

  She shrugged as she stared at the alien vessel hovering out of reach over the encampment.

  “One of my guys got pretty good at it,” said Lt. “And he ain’t even driven a car before, so I figure with you being a flyboy and experienced and all.”

  “Fly girl,” she corrected.

  He nodded and grinned, then turned toward John. Myra and a small group gathered behind him, more a show of support than seeking protection, Lt thought.

  “I didn’t want to get us involved in a family spat,” he said. “But your brother asked us to do something, and now it turns out one of you is lying.”

  John opened his mouth to respond, but Lt shook his helmeted head and cut him off.

  “Don’t matter to me. I don’t give a shit. We got us a mission and that there little spat you saw me do made me realize how hungry I am to get back to killing Licks.”

  He looked over John’s shoulders at the people behind the man, squinted at them, intense blue eyes traveling over their haggard and worn features.

  “Ya’ll spend all this time fighting one another, and you can’t see the real enemy is out there.”

  He pointed to the sprawled alien bodies scattered around the clearing.

  “You put as much energy into killing Lick as you do in fighting each other, I wouldn’t have to go out there and fight this war by myself. You savvy?”

  John nodded.

  But Lt wasn’t sure.

  He looked like he didn’t understand. Or rather, he did understand, but the jut of his jaw seemed petulant, as if he didn’t like things being pointed out to him.