Aliens Versus Zombies (37 page)

Daniels awoke with a start. He was seated on a chair, rifle across his knees, facing the door. He rose stiffly and stretched his aching back. He’d really overworked it these past few days.

“I’m still alive. I guess that’s a good way to start the morning.”

He walked over to the window and pulled the blinds aside far enough to peer out. The predawn light gave him a good look at the havoc he and the others had caused the previous night.

From this fifth-floor apartment, he had a view over the three story building in front of him. Beyond lay the park. There, aliens milled around like ants on a carcass. To his left was something that looked like a triage area. Judging by the number of people he could see, they had a
lot
of casualties. As a soldier, he took great satisfaction in a job well done. But as a human being, his heart sank at the thought of all the suffering.

They were no longer combatants, but patients. He could no more kill them now than he could strangle an injured kitten.

He shifted his focus to the landing area. Aside from the wreckage, there appeared to be more ships there than there had been last night. Reinforcements, or merely medical units down to help the injured? Maybe both.

Daniels walked to the bathroom to relieve himself and splash water on his face. Then he sat back down on the chair and took inventory of what he had with him to keep him alive. His M16 clip was down to 4 rounds. He had two buckshot rounds for the launcher. His pistol still held a full clip. He had his trusty KA-BAR knife, night-vision goggles, and a stale energy bar he’d stuffed in his pocket before leaving the Jilt.

It wasn’t much to fight off an entire alien army with.

* * * *

Dr. ZemBleth walked from patient to patient, personally supervising the performance of his staff in this trying time. He knew that whenever the Drahtch invaded a planet there would be casualties, many of them. More than a million, sometimes.

They were always prepared for that, with immense Medical Hubs aboard each carrier ship. But after a year of relative peace, with fewer than a thousand casualties—mostly bite wounds—they had grown lax.

This attack had taken them completely by surprise. It had been a hectic night as they scrambled to locate many of the field doctors and get the personnel, supplies, and equipment aboard the battle pods and down to the surface. Then they had to hurry to clear an area for triage and treatment, set up the gear, organize the wounded by severity, and so on. But now, twelve hours later, things were flowing more smoothly.

They were able to treat the minor wounds here, while those requiring surgery or other major repair were flown back up to the ships they were assigned to. There was a constant flow of people both up and down.

He was confident that the additional soldiers would secure the area. His only concern was for his patients—all three hundred and twelve of them.

Two hundred and fourteen others were beyond his help.

* * * *

FronCar awoke with a splitting headache. He found himself on his side, still in his pilot seat. The ship had come to rest on its starboard bulkhead. He released his safety constraints, but that made things worse. He discovered that his left leg was pinned against the port bulkhead by a piece of equipment dislodged by the crash. His right leg banged into the starboard bulkhead. It wasn’t until then that he realized he was injured. There was a gash in his thigh, but that was fairly superficial. Judging by the pain, he guessed his right leg was broken below the knee.

Now hanging by his pinned leg, he attempted to free himself. With no leverage, he was unsuccessful.

FronCar attempted to use the ship’s communicator to call for help, but it was as dead as the rest of the ship.

He hung there, pondering what to do.

* * * *

Tim and Julia independently asked themselves the same question. As each prepared to exit the city the night before, they were stopped by the sight of dozens of alien craft buzzing around the perimeter of the city. Clearly, they were looking for the attackers. At the same time, they created a protective cordon against further intrusion. However, it also prevented those within from leaving.

Once the day got warm enough, the heat from the Jilt’s engine would be somewhat masked by the background heat. But at night they would be more likely to be spotted, especially by hypervigilant crews looking for revenge.

For now, they had to sit tight and hope they wouldn’t be spotted by the alien foot patrols combing the city. At least the Jilt’s AO camouflage would help hide them—
if
the patrols didn’t get too close.

* * * *

PlevHun knew the more seriously injured among his fellow soldiers had to be treated first, but his finger hurt, damn it! The pain meds he’d received last night had long since worn off.

If that wasn’t enough, he now had a headache. His chin itched where that filthy indie had tried to bite him. But he told himself not to scratch. He didn’t want to get dirt in the scratch and risk an infection. No telling when the medics would get to him.

* * * *

Chrissy was seriously worried now.
No one
had come this way in the last ten hours. Either both Jilts had taken a different route for some reason, or…

That thought was too painful to think about.

In all the excitement of the past few days, she hadn’t thought to tell Chick the good news.

The morning of the attack on the mansion, she wasn’t just peeing in the bathroom, she was testing herself. Suzi wasn’t the only one who was pregnant—
if
the two-year-old pregnancy test was at all accurate. But after several days of vomiting, she was pretty sure it was.

* * * *

Daniels munched on his energy bar and reflected on what they’d accomplished with their attack. There was no question that they’d won a battle, a major one. One he really hadn’t imagined they had a chance of winning, against such ridiculous odds. But in the end, they’d won nothing. The aliens would still claim the planet, if, perhaps, with a few hundred fewer people.

Either way, the aliens had won the war in a virtual cakewalk. This was the only attack against them as far as he knew, and it did nothing to slow the inevitable takeover of Earth. He was sure that after this debacle they would be much better protected in the future against further attacks. This was a one-and-done deal.

That was a depressing thought.

Enough ruminations. He needed a way out of the city that wouldn’t get him killed. He had to find his way back to his bride-to-be.

* * * *

PlevHun finally received treatment for his finger, as well as another painkiller. After that, his headache didn’t bother him anymore. And although he’d received some antibiotic cream for his scratch, his chin still itched.

That was a minor annoyance, compared to what others were going through.

Damn indies!

He coughed. And then sneezed.
Damn allergies.
The pollen on this planet didn’t agree with his nose.

* * * *

It was noon and still no one had returned from the city. Chrissy began to cry. They’d known it was a longshot, but she’d still held out hope that at least some of them would make it out alive.

She wiped her tears and got back into the Jilt. With a heavy heart, she started the engine and headed for the armory. If anyone
did
get out, that’s where they’d expect to find her and the others.

* * * *

By 2 pm, Julia had decided that she couldn’t afford to wait any longer. The tension was eating her up inside.

It was already hot outside. She thought she could make it if she went slowly enough that the AO would have enough processing power to keep up the illusion.

Keeping the speed down to 20 MPH, she crept out of the city.

It wasn’t long before she revised her opinion of just how tense she could get. Earlier, she was relatively sheltered by the buildings around her; now she felt like an ant walking across a table, exposed to the world. At any moment an alien ship would hover overhead and fry her ass, like a kid with a magnifying glass cooks an ant.

Driving 20 MPH only made it last that much longer. She decided to up her speed to 25.

She directed Joanie to keep an eye out for alien ships. If they saw some, she’d stop immediately, hopefully reducing the odds of being spotted.

* * * *

Senior Engineer ExenGla reported as ordered to the makeshift headquarters. “Sir!”

“How is the progress coming with the power units?” JesBronn asked.

“All set, sir. We just have to make all the right connections and test the system integrity and then we’ll have the barrier and other systems back online. However it’ll only be at 80% strength until we can get a few more units down here and set up. We should be back up and running in an hour or less.”

* * * *

At three o’clock, Tim decided it was time to go. If he wanted to minimize his chances of being spotted by thermal imaging, he had to move before the day started to cool.

Keeping the speed down to 20 MPH, he crept toward the barrier. Another minute and he’d be out. And while not exactly safe, he figured his odds out there were better than staying here.

Eighty yards from freedom, he stopped.

“No, no,
no
!”

The barrier had just flickered back to life.

* * * *

Daniels decided he couldn’t risk attempting to leave during daylight. He’d wait until nightfall to try. Maybe by then, with no more attacks coming, the aliens would relax their patrols a bit, giving him a better chance of slipping through a crack somewhere.

It seemed unlikely, this soon after the attack, but he didn’t have a lot of options.

* * * *

Julia and Joanie finally arrived at the armory a little before 5 pm. Moving at such a slow pace had added a lot of time to the trip. Julia was drained of energy and reeked from nervous sweat.

She was excited to see the other Jilt parked out front. That meant that someone else had made it back.

She raced inside the building to see who it was. Joanie followed close behind.

She found Chrissy and Suzi sitting in one of the offices, and Amanda asleep curled up in a big chair.

“Oh.” Julia’s face fell.

“Well, hello to you, too. I appreciate the warm welcome.”

“Oh, no, sorry. It’s not that I’m not glad to see that you three are safe, but I expected you would be. I was kinda hoping the Jilt outside was the one Moose had been driving. At least that would have told me someone else had survived the attack and escaped from the city.”

Chrissy nodded. “I understand. Nothing personal, but I was hoping to see Chick’s face walk in here.”

“Of course; that’s natural.”

“So, is he…?” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

“I don’t know, Chrissy. All I know is that he didn’t come back to the Jilt last night. We got stuck until this afternoon, so perhaps the same thing happened to him. Maybe he’s holed up somewhere safe.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Chrissy didn’t act like she believed it.

“Look. We don’t have anywhere to be right now, so let’s hold tight for a day or two before we start worrying about where to go from here. Who knows? He and the others may come strolling in here at any time.”

Chrissy nodded, but she didn’t appear to think much of the likelihood of that happening.

* * * *

That evening, Daniels sat by the window, watching the aliens and hoping he’d learn something useful to help him escape his cage. As he watched, he munched on a very stale peanut butter cracker and sipped tap water from a coffee mug. He chuckled to himself at the memory, all those months ago, of him saying he’d be happy if he never saw another peanut butter cracker again. And now here he was grateful to have even that much. The apartment had evidently been occupied by a yuppie who ate out a lot, because that little package of crackers was the only edible thing in the place—unless you counted the black mass in a plastic bag that used to be a loaf of bread, two years ago.

* * * *

Tim finished relieving himself for the fourth time since the attack. Each time he did so, he was terrified he’d be spotted outside of the armored protection of the Jilt. If only it had a built-in bathroom.