Twenty-Seven

Settlement

Darkness had fallen over the besieged town of Settlement, and still the sentinels on the palisade kept their vigils, weapons in hand.

A shout rose up from Security Headquarters. “Heads up! Our sensors on the river just went down. We’re gonna have company!” 

Jenny traded a look with Carrie Manns. “It’s really going to happen,” the doxie noted.

“Any minute now,” Jenny agreed. She crouched down, peering over the edge of the palisade wall into the darkness beyond. Behind them, the Company troops ran to their firing positions. The colony’s two precious twin-barrel 30mm cannons were set up on their heavy tripods, one on the southwest corner, the other on the northeast, and Security troops frantically fitted heavy, metal-linked ammo belts to the massive weapons. 

A faint whine in the distance grew slowly louder. It seemed to come from all directions, underscored by a faint buzzing sound. 

“They’re all around us!” someone shouted from the far wall. 

“Y’all keep your heads! Make every shot count!” Colonel Davies’ voice bellowed out from somewhere in the darkened compound.

The whining and buzzing sounds grew louder.

“Mike, please, be alive out there,” Jenny whispered. “No matter what happens here, please be alive.” She shouldered her antique Remington and squinted over the sights into the night.

A spider-ship shot out of the darkness, angling for the northwest corner of the palisade. The ship roared overhead, spun on one of its four drivers, and aimed downwards, stabbing its white guide beam onto the roof of the Mercantile. But before it could fire its main weapon, both 30mm cannons opened up with chattering roars, lancing depleted uranium rounds through the spider’s shields. The ship exploded with a roar, the wreckage falling within the compound and ripping the south wall off the Mercantile building. Screams from the darkness echoed from people hiding in the buildings.

Two more spiders shot overhead, raking the buildings with green bolts. The cannon crews returned fire, damaging one ship that limped away trailing an incandescent cloud of sparks.

In the forest near Settlement

Dismayed by the loss of one of his four remaining scout ships and the severe damage of the other, Dispotratik barked orders through his throat mike. “Send in all the scooters – all of them! Use one of the scout ships to knock out those big weapons from a distance, then punch holes in the walls.”

A chorus of replies acknowledged his orders, the Grugell forces hurried to do their Group Commander’s bidding.

Settlement – on the wall

A faint form in the starlight moved against the trees. Then another, and another came into view. Jenny raised her voice in a shout that rose to a shriek: “They’re coming in on the ground! Watch the trees!” She snapped off a shot at one of the racing forms, tumbling the platform’s driver backwards.

A green energy bolt slammed into the cannon on the northeast corner of the palisade, destroying it and killing the gun’s three-man crew. The surviving crew sent a hail of depleted uranium slugs over the compound into the darkness, striking sparks off the unseen spider that had just killed their comrades. A green bolt from the opposite direction blasted a hole in the south palisade wall, then another. Before the cannon crew could traverse their heavy gun around, another bolt shot into the east wall, blasting a large hole and sending the defenders flying. Cracking rifle fire sounded from all about the walls as the Grugell charged for the gaps in the palisade on their flying platforms. Bolts of green energy lanced through the air from Grugell platform projectors and hand weapons, to be answered by rifle and cannon fire from the defenders.

“They’re inside the walls!”

The Grugell base camp

“Doc Richfield, come have a look at this thing.” Mike motioned the physicist forward to the base of a giant spruce.

A small town had sprung up in the meadow since Mike had seen it last, at least twenty of the thin-walled metal buildings had sprung up among the ferns. The structures were arranged in a rough square, but in the middle was a tall, featureless black obelisk, rising from a rectangular base, tapering away as it rose thirty meters above the surrounding buildings. A thin, cold drizzle fell now, and an ominous muttering came from the clouds overhead.

“It wasn’t there before, but that was only a day or so after they landed. Could that be what we’re after?”

Richfield squinted at the structure, shivering in the cold rain. “It doesn’t really look like it. It looks almost religious.” He pulled a small gizmo with a pistol grip from his jacket pocket, fiddled with a pair of dials, and pointed it at the black idol.

“Wow!” he exclaimed. “I guess that’s it after all – the thing’s throwing off energy readings that are off the scale. Don’t get too close to it – your kids might have three heads.”

“So,” Nathaniel Tzukuli wanted to know, “How do we go about disabling this thing, then?”

“It looks like it’s a pretty hard target,” Mike noted. “Looks like armor plate around the thing. I suppose they thought that someone like us might happen along to try to blow the thing up?”

Doctor Richfield was staring into his gadget’s tiny screen. “You know,” he said, “if you could get me up to that thing, and if we could find a way to get a look inside…”

“The thing ought to have an access panel, right?”

“I hope so.  They’re taller than we are, it may not be easy to reach.”

“Only one way to find out, right?”  Mike raised his head, looking out over the Grugell occupation camp. “Doesn’t seem like there’s too many of them around, does it? I wonder where the rest of them are?”

“I think the answer to that is rather obvious, old chap,” Tzukuli noted.

Settlement

The Battle for Settlement had degenerated into a free-for-all inside the palisade walls, the darkness punctuated by muzzle flashes of human firearms as well as blasts of emerald lightning from the surviving spider, flying platforms and Grugell hand weapons. The second cannon and crew disintegrated in crossfire between the undamaged spider and several flying platforms, depriving Settlement of its last heavy weapon.

Jenny crouched on the wall, alternating glances inside the wall and out. One more Grugell tried to make a run at the wall near her, only to be transfixed by a near-solid stream of steel darts from Carrie Mann’s assault rifle. Jenny snapped one shot at a buzzing platform but missed, as a green bolt slammed into the wall beneath her feet. Jenny and Carrie Mann landed hard, stunned, a few feet apart on the ground inside the palisade wall, chips and splinters of wood pattering into the red dust all around.

A stick-thin figure appeared in a gap in the wall, silhouetted against the faint moonlight, aiming a hand weapon at Carrie Mann. Jenny shook her head, frantically trying to rid herself of the sparkling lights in her vision. Rolling to her side, she brought the Remington to bear, firing once as the alien released a green bolt at the stunned doxie. The bullet took the alien in his leg, and he staggered sideways, screeching his agony even as Carrie howled in pain with a badly burned shoulder. Jenny stood up, somewhat unsteadily, and aimed remorselessly at the hobbling alien. A second shot finished him.

“There’s more, coming for the gap,” Carrie ground out through gritted teeth. A white light suddenly bathed the two women and everything around. A parachute flare, fired by a panicked farmer somewhere inside the compound, revealed at least ten dismounted Grugell troops racing for the gap in the palisade.

Carrie Mann’s Steyr Magnetic swept three of the racing figures down to the ground before her magazine of darts ran dry. Jenny’s Remington roared once, twice, dropping two more. The others darted to either side of the breach in the wall. A moment passed, and a black, oval object rolled in through the gap.

Jenny was stuffing fresh rounds in her Remington when the grenade exploded.

The Grugell base camp

“OK, let’s go!”

Mike and Thomas Quiet Water wriggled frantically through the soaking wet ferns towards the Grugell broadcast device, with Gerald Richfield crawling between them. Nathaniel Tzukuli crawled along behind them. Beauregard Rousseau and Yuri Pyak kept an over watch from the tree line, as the Menmunnys crept towards a large building that they reckoned to be some kind of dormitory. “A diversion,” the older Australian had announced while Mike was describing his plan. “Relax, mate – it’ll keep them from noticing you blokes going for the energy thing. Trust us!”

It didn’t take long for the ‘diversion’ to become apparent, as a rocket from Mick’s 14.5mm launcher screamed through the falling rain and exploded against the far side of the dormitory, punching a large hole in the wall and starting a fire. Shouts rose from within even as the blast echoed off the hills, and within moments lances of green fire were slamming into the tree line. A squad of Grugell troops bolted from the structure, quickly forming a rough skirmish line and running for the trees, heading for the spot where the rocket was fired.

“They won’t find anything,” Thomas Quiet Water whispered. “Mick and Tak, they’re of the old people. They know how to disappear.”

“I hope so – come on, let’s keep moving.”

A moment later they arrived at the base of the tower. As Richfield searched for an access panel, the others took up prone firing positions to defend him as he did his work.

“I think I’ve found it,” the scientist hissed. “Someone pass me a knife.”  Thunder rolled overhead as the physicist pried at a ground-level access panel in the driving rain.

Settlement

Jenny came to slowly. A haze of red obscured her vision and when she raised a hand to wipe her face, it came away bloody. A fragment from the Grugell grenade had lacerated her scalp and other fragments had sunk into her right side. When she tried to move, white-hot needles of pain shot through her from armpit to hip.

She managed to clear her vision and sit up, bracing herself against a fallen portion of the palisade. From farther inside the compound, she could hear shots, shouting, and the snap of Grugell blasters.

“You OK?” A weak voice from nearby, Carrie Mann, lying on her side in a pool of blood. “I guess they thought we were dead.”

“Where are you hurt?” Jenny gasped. “You’re bleeding like a stuck pig.”

“My leg – I took a big chunk of something. I’ve got it tied off now, but I sure don’t feel too good.” A weak grin. “Good thing I work on my back, eh?” The veteran doxie let out a coughing laugh.

“They’re still fighting inside.” Jenny caught sight of her Remington a few meters away and managed to crawl over to it. She checked the action quickly – two rounds in the magazine, one in the chamber.  Another .338 cartridge lay in the dust nearby. She picked it up, cleaned the red dust from it with her tattered shirt, and stuffed it into the magazine.

“I’m going to see what’s going on,” she told the doxie. Using the rifle as a prop, she managed to get to her feet, only to be hammered to her knees by a wave of dizziness.

“Girl, you’re about to fall over,” Carrie chided her, but weakly. 

“No, I’m not.”  Shaking her head, Jenny managed to get to her feet once again. “Can you get up?”

“I don’t imagine I can walk on this leg.” 

“Where’s your rifle?”

“Right here,” Carrie pulled the Steyr up from behind her. “I’m reloaded. Go on, I’ll be fine – I’ll play dead if too many come towards me. Worked once.”

On an impulse, Jenny went to the doxie and hugged her, and then she turned towards the interior of the compound. The shooting seemed to be slacking off somewhat now. In the fading light of another parachute flare, Jenny staggered towards the Mercantile building.

The Base Camp

The rain was falling harder now, thunder rolled overhead as bolts of lightning lit the landscape at irregular intervals. A full-blown thunderstorm had settled in on the mountain meadow.

The power transmitter’s access panel was open at last, pried open with Nathaniel Tzukuli’s spear point after the point of Mike’s skinning knife had broken off in the first attempt.

“Say, now this is interesting,” Richfield commented. He was using a penlight to peer inside the apparatus. “I think I see how this thing works.”

“Well, wreck it and let’s get out of here,” Mike hissed.

“I think I can do better than wreck it,” Richfield answered. “I think I can reverse the field polarity from here. If I do that, and they don’t know to adjust for it at the other end, that might turn this thing from a receiver to a reflector.”

“And that would do what, exactly?” Tzukuli asked.

“Well, it would bounce all that power being beamed here from that satellite straight back up to orbit,” Richfield said. “It ought to be, well, pretty spectacular. If it works.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Then this thing will overload and explode, and we’ll be incinerated.”

“Win-win situation,” Mike announced. “Go ahead – it’s worth a shot.”

A flash of lightning strobed across the sky, lighting up the fern meadow. A moment later, another rocket shrieked into the Grugell camp, this time from a different direction, exploding a parked flying platform. 

“Those Aussies, they take their diversions seriously,” Tzukuli noted with a dark chuckle. A Grugell voice shrieked in pain somewhere out in the darkness, then was silenced.

A shout came from the trees where Pyak and Rousseau waited. “Ils vous voient! Look out – dey’s a-comin’ your way!”

A bolt of green flared, missing Richfield’s head by millimeters. Mike returned fire at the two Grugell soldiers who had spotted them, dropping one with a 15mm solid. The other alien threw himself flat in the ferns, shouting. A round from Yuri Pyak’s monstrous Krupp cannon slammed into the ground beneath the alien and exploded, hurling him bloody and broken into the air, but too late. The alarm had already been sounded.

Settlement

A pair of bodies lay, broken and burnt, at the corner of the small house half a block from the Mercantile. Jenny crouched, checking for pulses, but the middle-aged man and woman were both dead. From her position, she could see the open area in front of the Mercantile.

Several bodies, both human and Grugell, littered the area. Sporadic shots were still being fired from within the Mercantile, while the Grugell returned fire with blasts of green from various positions outside. 

The aliens were advancing, mercilessly, on the last holdouts in the giant store. Beneath the building, in the cavernous storage spaces, Jenny knew the bulk of Forest’s colonists were hiding – including all of the colony’s children. Overhead, the whine of the undamaged spider grew louder. The white guide beam flickered down towards the building, followed by two blasts that silenced the rifle fire from within. A squad of ten Grugell troops appeared, trotting towards the building, firing as they went. The spider dropped in closer, hovering, the white guide beam playing ahead onto the Mercantile to cover the troop’s advance.

The Grugell Base Camp

“To your left!” Mike rolled and fired twice with his Colt, another Grugell fell into the ferns. An emerald bolt glanced off the tower just over his head.

“Keep them off for just a couple minutes more,” Richfield snapped. He shook his head, sending drops of rainwater flying from his close-cropped hair.

“Doing our best, Doc, but we’re on the clock, here.”

“One to your right,” Thomas Quiet Water warned.

“On him,” Tzukuli replied, snapping off a shot from his Transvaal double. The Grugell soldier dodged the shot, retreating over the lip of a small rise. The scouts could hear him screeching for reinforcements.

“This isn’t looking good, lads,” Tzukuli noted.

Running footsteps approached quickly from the western tree line. Mike rolled and swung around to face the sound, rifle pointed, only to see Tak Menmunny racing towards them through the pounding rain.

“You almost got yourself killed, boy,” Tzukuli snarled. 

“Never mind that, mate – you’ve got about twenty of those things hiding on the other side of that little ridge, fixing to come settle your hash. Me Pop’s going to fire a hi-ex rocket right into the thick of ‘em just as they get up to rush you – I already been over to the others, they’re in a good spot to fire from.”

“Doc, keep at it,” Mike ordered as Richfield looked up. “We’ll keep them off you.”

Thomas Quiet Water crept around the side of the tower, dripping wet, his large dressing knife in one hand. “He’s right,” the Cheyenne confirmed. “Twenty, right over there.”

“You mean to tackle them with a knife, mate?” Tak asked.

“No ammo.”

The crack of a 14.5mm rocket exploding marked the Grugell charge. Sixteen of the stick-thin soldiers rushed over the little rise, silhouetted by the glow of the burning dormitory building behind them. Bolts of green fire lanced ahead of them.

The scouts returned fire, aided by shots from Rousseau and Yuri Pyak, but before they repelled the charge, several green bolts raked the ground at the base of the broadcast tower. The Grugell retreated over the rise, four of them, dragging one wounded comrade.

A groan led Mike to look over at where Gerald Richfield lay on his side at the open panel. A flash of lightning revealed the scene with unreal clarity. A Grugell energy bolt had lanced through Richfield’s chest a few centimeters to the right of center. The physicist coughed hard, spraying blood into the wet ferns.

“Oh, shit,” Mike breathed. “Doc, can you hear me? Doc?”

Richfield’s eyes rolled up at Mike. “Yeah, I can hear,” he gasped, “Just can’t breathe too good…” His voice trailed off into another fit of coughs. A bolt of lightning slammed into a tree to their rear, the clap of accompanying thunder rolled over the scouts.

Mike looked up at Nathaniel Tzukuli, who had rolled to crouch on the other side of the scientist. The Zulu looked up at Mike and shook his head once, his liquid brown eyes huge in the dim light of the distant fire.

“Doc, can you tell us what to do? We’ve got to kill this thing, Doc!”

“Help me roll over,” Richfield gasped. 

Settlement, in front of the Mercantile

“All forces, hold your fire! Hold your fire!” Dispotratik shouted. He strode forward, gesturing at the gathering foot soldiers around the large wooden building. “They’re about finished. We’ll advance on line, get troops into that structure and wipe them out.” A loud bang sounded to the rear. Dispotratik barked into his throat mike, “Lepotraskit! There’s one of them around to the rear by the wall someplace. Get a squad out there to find it!”

Near the palisade

“We’re losing, aren’t we?”

Jenny almost jumped out of her moccasins at the voice. She turned to see the farm couple that had been next to her on the palisade.

“No, we’re not going to lose. Have you two still got ammo?” The husband and wife nodded. “Follow me, then,” Jenny ordered.

They crept from cover to cover, from building to building, until they reached the corner of a small shop with a good view of the Mercantile. The Grugell were at the main doors now, the firing from inside had stopped.

“We’ve got to draw them off,” Jenny said. “You two stay here. When you hear my shot, both of you shoot one of them and then run back to the wall. Circle around behind the buildings, and try to get back from the other side. Shoot once, then move. We’ve got to give those people inside a chance.”

“This is pointless, we should get out of there,” the farm wife pleaded. “There’s too many of them.”

Jenny grabbed the woman by her shoulder. “Listen, my Mike is up there in the mountains with his scouts. They should be at those things’ base camp by now. We’ve got to buy time – they can shut the alien’s power off from there!”

“Power?” the husband asked. “How?”

“I don’t know exactly, but you’ve got to trust me. Now do as I tell you!”

Cowed, the farm couple nodded.

Jenny left them there and scuttled to the corner of Settlement’s lone café. At the rear of the Grugell forces, one tall, caped figure stood alone in the light from several fires around the compound, with two armed soldiers a pace or two behind him. He appeared to be barking orders at the others.

That’s the boss, Jenny told herself.  Taking him out will screw their night up. Fifty meters – piece of cake.

She aimed carefully. A trickle of blood ran into her eyes, she had to stop to wipe it away. Trying to calm her ragged breathing, she aimed again. The sights settled on the alien’s chest. Her father’s voice came back to her, explaining, take a deep breath – let half of it out – and squeeze!

The ancient Remington roared into the night. The Grugell commander let out a weak screech and collapsed into a tangle of sticklike arms and legs.

Two shots roared from somewhere to Jenny’s left, and two more Grugell troops hit the dirt. She ducked and ran to the rear, working the Remington’s bolt as she ran. Green energy bolts and shouting followed her flight.

She ducked around a shack, through a badly damaged storage shed, and crawled under a tool shed next to the Blue House. From there, she could see three Grugell troops carefully edging up to the corner of the building she’d last shot from. Aiming carefully, she dropped one of them twitching into the dust. The other two hit the ground and fired wildly, sending emerald bolts flying in her general direction, but Jenny had already crawled out from under the shed and was racing to a new spot. Somewhere behind her, more rifle shots barked.

The Grugell Base Camp

“I think I’ve got it,” Richfield gasped. His breath was coming hard now, a pool of blood gathered under him where he lay on his stomach. Sporadic fire still came their way from several directions as occasional rifle shots barked from the trees around. At one point another 14.5mm rocket raced right-to-left from Mike’s perspective, slamming into a small building. A Grugell voice screeched once, thinly, before fading out.

“Doc,” Mike asked. “You still with us?” A nod. The scientists’ hands were still inside the open panel, still moving.

Richfield was holding the darkness back by sheer willpower alone. He was wet and cold, the rain driving into his eyes made it hard to see. Breathing was almost impossible now, his mouth kept filling with blood, his arms were growing weaker by the moment. This lead, he thought, disconnect that, attach it to this here, turn this contact off – that’s got to be a hyper wave modulator, unplug that, turn it around, hook that lead back up, and then when I put the modulator back in, that should do it… His hands were heavy as lead now, his vision narrowing, fading.

That should get it – plug that back in now – oh, God, I’m dying…

High orbit, over Forest

Roptamaktik IX was the technician in charge of the power satellite’s crew of three. A boring tour of duty was about to turn suddenly – and briefly – exciting.

“Sir,” a shout came from the watch technician, waking Roptamaktik where he dozed in his chair, “There is feedback from the receiving station, sir, rapidly rising…”

The satellite exploded a millisecond later, vanishing into a cloud of expanding gas and rubble.

Settlement

Jenny’s luck had run out. A wave of dizziness overcame her as she tried a dash between buildings, hammering her to her knees. She struggled to get up, dimly hearing the thin shouts of Grugell soldiers. She looked up, wiping blood out of her eyes, to see a stick-figure alien standing over her. 

The aliens’ hand extended, bearing an energy weapon. His face lit up in a sharp-toothed grin as he pushed the firing stud.

And nothing happened.

Behind him, the spider ship’s driver orbs went dark, and the spider dropped from the sky like a stone, crashing into the group of Grugell troops facing the Mercantile. All around the compound, flying platforms crashed into the ground, slamming their drivers against the control T-handles or spilling them onto the ground.

They did it! The thought exploded in Jenny’s head. A burst of adrenaline brought her to her feet, screaming a victory cry. The Grugell in front of her stepped back, alarmed. He tried to fire his weapon again, with no result. Panicking now, he turned and ran.

Jenny ran for the Mercantile, firing her Remington from the hip at stunned, helpless Grugell soldiers, shouting as loud as she could, “Come on out! Their power’s gone!”

A dozen OWME Security troops burst from the big main doors, firing as they ran.  Colonel Davies was right behind them, shouting orders. The panicking, weaponless Grugell fled into the night.

“Ah’ll be damned,” the Colonel exclaimed, “Ah’ve never seen tables turn as fast as that before. Major Wells!”

The Major appeared from the open doors, grinning. “Yes sir!”

“Y’all get a squad out there, get some lights back on around the area. Get some folks organized to look for wounded and get a detail to look after any prisoners.”

“Yes, sir – I think you’ve got your first wounded right there, sir.” Major Wells pointed.

Jenny staggered towards the Colonel, battered, filthy and bleeding, and collapsed in his arms.

“They did it, didn’t they Colonel?” she asked. “They really did it.”

“You bet they did, Miss. You bet they did,” he assured her as she slipped into a faint.

The Grugell base camp

“You did it, Doc! Lights are all off, all around – you did it!”

A cloud of smoke burst from the open panel. Sparks shot out, bouncing off Richfield’s unresponsive face.

Mike grabbed at Richfield’s shoulder, shaking him once. There was no reply.

“Doc?”

Nathaniel Tzukuli leaned over, feeling for a pulse. “He’s dead, lad.” 

Thomas Quiet Water muttered something in his native language. He rolled back, sat up with his back against the defunct broadcast tower, and began a singsong chant. Silence closed in around them as the lights from the fires slowly died out, Thomas continued his chant as the scouts gathered around the body of their savior. Mike explained to the others what had happened.

“Cet homme, il est un lion!” Rousseau exclaimed softly.

“We’ll take him home with us,” Mike announced. Murmurs of agreement came from the group. “Let’s get him back down the valley a way. We’ll get some sleep and start out tomorrow. I don’t think the Grugell will be bothering us any.” The rain continued to fall all around the scouts as they gathered around their fallen comrade. Of the Grugell there was no sign. A bolt of lightning lit up the scene briefly, revealing Gerald Richfield’s open, unseeing eyes still staring at the open panel. Mike reached down and gently closed the scientists’ eyes.

To see more of Animal’s writing, visit his page at Crimson Dragon Publishing or Amazon.