Aliens Versus Zombies (15 page)

Damn! I took on five aliens with ray guns, and came out on top!

The big question was, what happened in the other store? Who fired first? Who lived and who died?

In the heat of the moment, Johnny thought he remembered hearing both gunfire and the buzz of energy weapons, but he was too busy to keep track of the number of shots or who fired last.

All he could do was wait to see who walked out of the other shop. He sidled to the far right of the storefront and aimed out the shattered window, just in front of the other entryway. Then he waited.

One minute passed, and then another. A bead of sweat trickled down Johnny’s forehead, and along his nose. He wanted to scratch, but he couldn’t afford to take his attention off the front door ahead of him. After another minute, he had just about convinced himself that they had all killed one another. Then, a glass bottle clattered across the floor.

He got ready to fire, tightening his finger ever so slightly on the trigger.

Come on, come on! Be Mandy or Fred. Come on!

And then a head emerged. It had golden skin and the alien was staggering, holding his side.

Damn it!

Johnny was an instant from firing when pain seared the side of his face. He never saw the driver he had shot fire at him from on the sidewalk.

* * * *

“Say that again, doctor?” FronCar listened to the voice on his communicator for a moment longer, and then hurried down to the Medical Hub.

Dr. ZemBleth had a patient lying on a treatment table. He supervised as several robotic arms performed precision surgery on the patient. Within minutes, the soldier was patched up and on his way to a recovery pod.

“How long until he’s ready for me to debrief him?”

“Give it a couple of hours until the pod is done administering the post-op treatment, then he should be well enough to talk.”

“Very well. Tell me everything he said.”

“He was babbling about indigenes attacking and killing his entire squad.”

“What’s so unusual that you felt the need to call me down here?”

“He said they spotted four indigenes carrying what, from a distance, looked like big sticks. The squad pursued them into two adjacent buildings. That’s where things got strange. They cornered two of the indigenes in one building and entered the back room, expecting to face savages with sticks. Instead, both indigenes pointed weapons at them and fired. TomJik was injured and the other three soldiers were killed before TomJik finished off the second indigene. When he exited the building, he found the driver shooting at another indigene before he died himself.

“TomJik checked the other building and found much the same story. Four soldiers dead, along with both indigenes. Four indigenes shot and killed eight soldiers.”

“Are you sure TomJik isn’t delirious, or inventing an outlandish story to cover gross negligence on the part of his squad?”

“Quite sure. The medbots extracted this from his abdomen.” He held up a flattened lead slug.

FronCar took it from him and examined it under a magnifier.

“Very crude, and certainly nothing that our soldiers carry.”

“TomJik also brought this back with him in the vehicle before he passed out and crashed near the landing area.”

He held a hunting rifle in both hands.

“Interesting,” FronCar said.

He took the weapon from the doctor and turned it over to look at it from all directions. It seemed obvious that the trigger was the firing mechanism. He kept his fingers clear of that part, but looked for other mechanisms that might give some clue to how it worked.

“Obviously it isn’t an energy weapon, so what powers it?” he muttered to himself.

After another minute of examination he came to a decision. “Best to have the Chief Armorer look it over and see how it works. And I’d better let the surface contingent know to be on the lookout for indigenes with dangerous weapons more advanced than sticks and knives.”

He shook his head. “Nothing’s ever simple during an invasion, is it?”

“We found Johnny and the others, Geoff.”

Daniels dropped down into a chair in the large meeting room the group had begun using as their command center. It sported a large whiteboard, several flat-screen monitors positioned around the room, digital projectors, and the various wireless networking components needed to tie everything together. Of course, without power it was all pretty much useless—except for the low-tech whiteboard and a few dry-erase markers.

“Zoms got ‘em?” Geoff replied with a knowing nod.

“Worse. Aliens.”

This got Meisner’s attention. “What happened?”

“Hard to say exactly, but we found them dead with large wounds that appeared to be cauterized by heat—some sort of energy weapon. Obviously not a Zom or human weapon. There were no alien bodies there—I guess someone came and got them—but there was plenty of yellow blood everywhere. Definitely a firefight. Scorch marks on some walls and bullet holes on others. No telling how many they started with, or how many escaped, but there had to be some deaths.”

“That’s troublin’,” Geoff said. “The aliens now know there’re armed humans about. They may come lookin’ for more. How far away did it happen?”

“Not far enough, I’m afraid. Maybe a quarter mile west and a bit south of here.”

“Damn. We’d better beef up our lookouts and have more people on sentry duty, just in case. I don’t know how much good rifles would be against energy weapons, but they might buy us some time so we can evacuate.”

“I agree, and I recommend we begin evacuating immediately. Have everyone wait in the downstairs lobby, so if we get hit up here they can get out into the subway tunnel ASAP. Have them head up to where it splits off into the Red line and take that north. The alien presence is heaviest in the southern part of the city.”

“Good idea.”

“I would guess if they’re coming, it’ll be today or tomorrow. But even if they don’t come now, they’ll get here soon enough. They’re definitely pushing north at a steady rate. It won’t be long before they take the entire city. We’ll have to leave sooner or later. It would be safer to leave sooner, before they find us.”

“I’m afraid you’re right. Damn. Just when we were getting comf’table here.”

Daniels shrugged. “Unfortunately, that’s the world we live in. We can’t afford to get comfortable anywhere.”

“Amen to that.”

“I think I know a way to even up the odds a little bit more, if I can borrow a few of your people.”

“Take whatever and whoever you need. I’ll round everyone else up and go over defensive positions and evacuation plans one more time.”

“Good. Let’s aim to have everyone and as much food as they can comfortably carry ready to go in two hours; no later.”

“Will do.”

* * * *

Daniels gathered his team of six in front of the white board, where he had sketched a diagram of the main lobby level and another one of the lower lobby/train platform level. He also marked the most likely points where the aliens might try to enter the complex.

“Chrissy, while you were being influenced by that ‘bad crowd’ you mentioned earlier, did you ever learn how to blow stuff up?”

“Blow—? We weren’t terrorists, Chick, just kids on the grift looking for ways to scrounge up enough money for our next high.”

“Okay, sorry! I didn’t mean to impugn your upbringing.” He said the latter with a wry smile. “I don’t suppose anyone here has any experience with explosives?”

He got five shakes of the head. “Okay. I’m not a munitions expert, but when I served in Afghanistan, we all got a crash course in how improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, are made. Some use explosives, like claymore mines or hand grenades, with tripwires, pressure plates, alarm clocks, or other simple triggering mechanisms. We don’t have any explosives here, other than bullets, and we need those for our guns; so those types of IEDs won’t help us. But we also learned how the insurgents made other sorts of explosive or incendiary devices using household chemicals. Everyone with me so far?”

They all nodded.

“Good. Fortunately, the janitorial staff here at the convention center had stocked up on lots of industrial-strength cleaning supplies. I’m going to teach you how to
safely
mix just the right chemicals, in just the right proportions to make several simple but effective weapons to keep the aliens off our trail long enough for us to escape. Everyone ready?”

A chorus of cheers answered his question.

“Good. Let’s start with what happens when you mix ammonia and chlorine bleach together.”

* * * *

Squad Subregulator ChibNorl rode in one of three vehicles patrolling the area looking for more of those MemKar-damned indies that had killed his men the day before. Platoon Regulator BlexJasp hadn’t been pleased by that one little bit. He’d gotten chewed out by
his
superior, and in turn had chewed out ChibNorl for not having his men alert enough to have made short work of the situation.

Projectile weapons, of all things! Who expected that? How could those wild animals possibly operate anything more complicated than a knife or a rock?

It was slow going, checking every building, big or small, to root out nesting indigenes. Gone were the days when Drahtch patrols just traveled up and down the streets waiting for indigenes to come screaming at them from wherever they had been hiding. Now that most of the creatures had been killed or herded to the other end of the city, the remaining stragglers were mostly easy pickings, with only the occasional negative encounter—such as yesterday’s.

The new orders were to scour the immediate area for any more of the “smart” indigenes that might be armed.

ChibNorl would be damned if he’d get chewed out again on account of these damned indies.

* * * *

Daniels reported back to Geoff Meisner on the defensive plans put in place.

“We’re ready to go. It’s time to get everyone down to the lower lobby and out of the line of fire. It might not be as luxurious down there as up here, but it’ll be a damn sight safer. If the aliens come a-knockin’ it could happen at any time, and it’ll get loud in a hurry.”

* * * *

Despite assertions to BlexJasp about how the men would be on high alert this patrol, ChibNorl was bored. After several hours of door-to-door searches, with nothing to show for it, ChibNorl had to fight the urge to yawn. Finally, they reached the end of the street. Directly ahead was a large complex. One tall tower amid two short, wide buildings.

There was nothing especially noteworthy about that, except it appeared pristine. Not a single window was broken, and the doors were closed. If not for some abandoned vehicles in front, it could have been the poster child for modern indigene architecture.

With the structure intact, it was possible that indigenes lurked inside—maybe a lot of them. With a feeling of anticipation that dispelled the boredom of a moment ago, he directed the driver to pull up as close as possible to the entrance.

Interestingly, this building had barriers by the street, making it impossible to bring vehicles close to the building itself. That meant a relatively long walk from the street to the doors. A long,
exposed
walk, should there be any indigenes inside with projectile weapons aimed at ChibNorl and his men.

Although he had no reason to believe that was the case, he had to assume it was. He signaled one of his vehicles to continue on to the entrance of the low building to the left, and the other to the low building to the right. They would all converge inside the building directly behind the main entrance in the center.

The three teams ran in a zigzag pattern for the respective entrances, weapons at the ready. They reached the revolving door without incident. ChibNorl tried to push the door open, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Step back,” he ordered.

He spotted the key lock adjacent to the door and blasted it with his weapon. It melted, rather than exploding in tiny shards. He tried the door again. It still didn’t budge. He turned up the intensity in his weapon and shot again. This time the lock blew apart.

He waved five of his men into the first segment of the door and they pushed the door forward to let the remaining four in.

Then something unexpected happened.

Balanced atop one of the glass dividers separating the two segments were two one-gallon plastic bottles of liquid with the tops cut off. One contained ammonia and the other chlorine bleach. When the door moved, the two bottles tipped over onto the soldiers. The liquid splashed and combined to form hydrochloric acid and chloramine gas—one highly corrosive and the other toxic.

Fumes burned their eyes and mucous membranes and the acid burned down the length of their bodies. The men screamed in pain. The resulting confusion caused a moment’s hesitation when they should have pushed forward. That was their undoing.

One man collapsed and blocked the door from turning further. Then the rest were overpowered by the fumes and collapsed. Their skin sizzled from droplets of acid as they died.

ChibNorl, in the segment behind them, watched aghast as his men died in agony.

“Back, back, back!” he yelled to the others.

They jumped out of the segment and back onto the pavement outside.

Wild-eyed, ChibNorl stopped to catch his breath and take stock of the situation. More screams emanated from the squads at the other entrances.

He used his communicator to call back the other men, and then he signaled his team to return to the vehicles.

Out of the twenty-seven men who had attempted to enter the building, thirteen died within seconds.

Clearly, these weren’t the usual brain-dead indigenes.

Then it hit ChibNorl: thirteen dead and they hadn’t even seen a damn indie yet.

* * * *

“Come on, hurry it up!” Daniels waved the last of the residents of The Castle through the revolving doors and onto the subway platform. They followed the others along the tracks.

Now only Daniels’ team remained behind.

Jesse came running. “Man, those bleach bombs of yours are some nasty stuff. I took a peek at the aliens tryin’ to get in.” He shook his head. “They ain’t comin’ in through
those
doors, I’ll tell you that!”

Daniels should have been happy that his first line of defense had been so successful. But he’d seen what chloramine gas could do to a human soldier. It wasn’t something he’d wish on anyone—but this was war, and they were seriously outgunned and outmanned.

He just hoped his other booby-traps were as successful.

* * * *

This mission clearly required another. The front entrances were out of the question. Most likely, any side or rear entrances were similarly protected and they had no way to directly reach the roof. The next best approach was through the windows, but not the ground floor windows. Too obvious and too likely to be booby-trapped.

ChibNorl looked upward, and spotted a literal “window of opportunity.”

He and the thirteen remaining troops ran up to the extended breezeway roof that protected visitors from the elements when entering from the street, since it was so far from the entrance. The men helped each other up onto the roof and they ran to the second-floor window above the breezeway.

ChibNorl fired at the window, expecting it to shatter as easily as the hundreds of others he and his men had blasted in pursuit of indies. Instead, the fired charge deflected backward off the reflective energy-efficient window glass and hit one of his men in the chest, killing him instantly.

MemKar damn it! I really hate these damned indies!

Closer inspection revealed some charring of one of the sheets of polycarbonate layered between the panes of glass.

“All right. Everyone stand to the left. Turn your weapons up to maximum power and tight focus. On my mark, we’ll all fire at this spot.” He pointed to his right at an angle.

“Ready? Now!”

Fourteen gouts of energy stuck one small area of glass at once. Bulletproof glass is tough, but it wasn’t designed withstand that much energy. Within a few milliseconds, the glass and polycarbonate heated up to several thousand degrees. When the window shattered, it did so explosively, sending large chunks of glass inward like missiles.

After giving the window a few seconds to cool, the soldiers rappelled down to the lobby and were ready for action.

“You seven go that way. Start at the bottom and work your way up. Shoot anything that moves. The rest of you follow me.”

* * * *

Chrissy left the kitchen through the back door, careful to close it behind her, and ran along the service corridor toward the lower lobby. It wouldn’t take long for the gas to build up from the six ovens, sans pilot lights.