Aliens Versus Zombies (34 page)

There was a grim mood in the motor pool as the five who were to fire the weapons considered what was to come. But there was also a feeling of satisfaction that at last they could hit back at the beings that had cost them so much.

* * * *

Before loading the munitions and other gear they would need into three Jilts, they put Amanda down for a nap in one of the offices. Then Daniels spent an hour explaining how to safely set up and operate each of the launch platforms, as well as the safe handling of the munitions. The most time-consuming part was making sure everyone knew how to operate the targeting systems and acquire a target. But eventually Daniels was satisfied that they wouldn’t blow themselves up—or each other.

Then he spent another hour showing them how to operate the Jilts. The truck was much more sophisticated than a family sedan, but by ignoring the most of the built-in advanced electronic features and concentrating on just how to drive the vehicle, it didn’t take long for the drivers to learn where the various controls were and how to use them.

“The most important advanced feature is for the adaptive optics, or AO. Fortunately, it was designed to be self-optimizing. You turn it on, give it a minute to warm up, scan the surroundings and initiate the adaptive camouflage, and then you’re all set. The farther away the viewer is, the more effective the illusion. Too close and they can see a blurry outline of the Jilt and that ruins the effect.

“One major caveat, though. The microprocessors that do all the analysis and then light up the LEDs are fast, but they have their limitations. They’re great when the vehicle is stationary, but in a moving vehicle there’s a lot more processing to do as the scenery around the vehicle changes rapidly. The faster the vehicle goes, the less effective the active camo is. To anyone watching from a distance, it looks like there’s a blur, almost like heat shimmer. If you’re driving with the AO active, try to keep the speed to no more than 40 MPH. The faster you go beyond that, the more likely you are to be seen, plus the engines run hotter, creating a bigger thermal footprint. For this mission, being seen probably means being dead. Let’s not die if we can avoid it.”

When Daniels was satisfied with their progress, he had them practice driving, first in the motor pool, and then the street, and finally off-road to accustom themselves to how the Jilts handled. Then the group went into town for lunch and food supplies; enough to last for a few days. They didn’t know whether they would survive the day, but if they did they might be on the run with no time to stop for food.

Then it was time to finalize the plan of attack.

* * * *

“All right. So our only advantage is surprise. We can’t go toe to toe with them. We have to stick and move, like a prize fighter—guerilla warfare. Hit them quick, move somewhere else, and hit them again before they can react to where you
used
to be. And be alert to your surroundings at all times. We don’t have any intel on where their command center is, or anything else, except what we saw last year. Old intel is typically
bad
intel, and bad intel can get you killed. But that’s all we’ve got. We’ll have to adapt on the fly to changing conditions.

“We know they were using the park as a landing area within the city. So that will be Moose’s assignment: shoot down any vehicles taking off or landing. If they have some sort of protective force field around the ships, we’re screwed. But it’s possible they have to turn it off before landing, and don’t turn it back on until they’re back in the air. Who knows? So, fire when they’re fairly close to the ground, say a thousand feet. It gives you shorter range, anyway. Less time for them to react. You’ll have three missiles, so go for the biggest targets if there are multiples. Easier to hit and more bang for the buck. If there aren’t any ships there, well, then see if you can find a heat source on the ground to lock onto. It’ll be some sort of alien installation.

“Chrissy, you’ll take Suzi and Amanda with you to the power substation. You’ll blow the towers that hold the high-voltage lines into the city, at the designated time. The other part of your job is to protect Suzi and Amanda. The rest of us will take the SMAWs, split up, and pick targets of opportunity. Joanie, you’ll help Julia by carrying a rocket. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

“Good. You do whatever Julia tells you.”

He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. “There’s no telling what the aliens have been doing in that city over the past year. Remember: stick and move. If you sit in one place for too long, you’re dead. We can’t expect the aliens to run around in a panic the moment we open fire. They’re used to conquering entire planets. They must have their shit together.

“We’ll need to time this with precision. The rest of us have to be in place well before the power goes out, so that we’re ready to rumble the second it does.

“When the shield drops, we run in, pick our spots, fire and move on. When you run out of projectiles, hightail it back to your vehicle. You can’t do much with hand weapons after that. If you reach the Jilt, wait for a fair amount of time before deciding that no one else is coming, and then bug out. There’s an excellent chance that most or all of us won’t get out of the city alive, so don’t hang around hoping that someone else from your vehicle will come out eventually. Don’t run back in hoping to save someone in trouble. If we get in trouble, it’s already too late.

“Once you decide that no one else is coming, head back here. Whoever makes it will rendezvous at the armory. If the aliens follow us back, we might get another shot or two at them that way.

“I know I hit you with a lot all at once, and I know you’re not highly trained soldiers. So if anyone wants to back out, I won’t hold it against you. Feel free to take a Jilt and head for the hills. You might be able to stay away from the aliens for a year or more.

“So, what do you say? Are you in or out?”

He looked at each of them, one by one, starting with Moose.

“Dude, you know I’m ready for this. It’s time to whup some motherf—”

“Moose!” Chrissy admonished. “Little girl, remember?” She had her hands over Amanda’s ears. Her nap had ended twenty minutes earlier.

“Sorry. But, yeah, I’m in.” He seemed embarrassed by his outburst.

“Don’t sweat it, bro,” Daniels said. “Tim?”

“You know I’m in. They killed my wife and baby. Those bastar—, um, aliens, have to be held accountable.”

Daniels continued in like fashion going around the table, one by one—getting only nods from Suzi and Joanie—until only Chrissy remained.

“You know I’m with you to the end, lover,” she said.

“All right, then, he said. It’s just about 3:30. We’ll synchronize our watches at precisely 3:30. We leave at 7 pm to give us time to get there and to the city by 9:00. Chrissy, that’s when you blow the power, and then we’ll get into position and hit those invaders with everything we have at 9:30 on the dot, when it’s nice and dark.”

* * * *

At 5:58, Chrissy pulled Daniels aside and said, “Chick, I need to talk to you about something important, and I need to do it before we leave.”

“What is it?”

Chrissy shook her head. “Not here. Somewhere private.”

“Follow me.” Daniels led Chrissy to an empty office nearby. “What’s going on? It’s okay if you’re afraid of this mission. It’s understandab—”

Chrissy held up a hand to stop him. “No, it’s-it’s nothing like that. It’s…something I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time, but never seemed to find the right time.”

Daniels’ brow knitted in confusion. “What—?”

“Just-just let me talk before I lose my nerve. This is something I’ve never told anyone before. It’s hard to say out loud.” She walked to the nearest office chair and sat. Then she stared at her feet for several seconds. When she spoke, it was barely above a whisper.

“When I was fourteen…I was…raped by my Uncle Jack.” She froze for a moment at Daniels’ sharp intake of breath and then began to cry.

He grabbed another chair and pulled it in front of Chrissy. He sat and took her hands in his. “Go on.”

She described what happened that night in detail. As she spoke, the muscles in her neck and shoulders unknotted and the underlying tension released. Her tears stopped flowing.

Chrissy wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “God, it feels so good to
finally
get that off my chest. I— That’s why I was so messed up as a teen, why I ran away from home, the drugs and everything else…why I have such a hard time getting close to people.”

Daniels squeezed her hands. “The bastard’s long dead by now. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

“I know that. It’s taken me a long time to deal with it. If not for you, I might never have.” She squeezed
his
hands now. “I had to tell you before…well, just in case. I didn’t want to go to my grave with this big, dark secret hanging over me.”

Daniels gathered Chrissy in his arms, her head on his shoulder. “I’m glad you did, sweetheart.”

“Me, too.” She hugged him hard and pulled her head back for a moment. Staring into his eyes, she said, “Now let’s go kick some alien ass!”

They left at 7:00 sharp, with the sun nearing the horizon. The trip was expected to take about an hour and a half. That gave them 30 minutes or so as a buffer in case there was a problem.

Because she had to drive, Chrissy couldn’t afford to have her injured arm in a sling, even though she could barely flex her fingers to grip the wheel. Still, on a bumpy cross-country drive two hands gave her more leverage for turning and better control of the wheel. Tougher to manage with a broken right wrist was the gear shifter. She gritted her teeth against the pain and forced herself to do it. The entire battle plan depended on her completing her mission, and that mission required driving to the substation.

The lead Jilt contained Daniels, Julia, and Joanie, with Hiram curled up next to Daniels. The middle car held Moose, Jason, and Tim. And Chrissy, Suzi, and Amanda brought up the rear. They spaced themselves out to minimize their thermal footprint, and kept the speed to 40 MPH.

This was the riskiest part of the mission. If the aliens spotted them now, the humans would be dead long before they were able to take a shot at the invaders. None of them really expected to survive the day, but at least they wanted to be able to meet their end feeling that they’d struck a blow for humanity. The closer they got to the city, the more exposed they felt. More than one of them experienced an itchy/twitchy sensation between the shoulder blades. It was, as if they were waiting for a giant hammer to fall from the skies at any moment and squash them flat.

* * * *

The tension grew as they crossed the bridge over the river. They felt even more exposed, with nowhere to run should things go sideways.

They made it over the bridge without incident, turned left, and some of the tension lessened. It then began to creep back up as they got closer to the city. And then it ratcheted up even more when they came to a parting of the ways.

Daniels and Moose turned right, to head for the southern part of the city, while Chrissy kept going straight. The turn-off for the power substation was a few miles farther ahead.

* * * *

Chrissy couldn’t remember the last time she felt so alone. No, wait; it was right after awakening from her cold-turkey stupor two years ago and discovering that everyone around her was dead from the plague. She had a hard time remembering the following weeks, surviving by eating whatever scraps of food she could find, ducking through unfamiliar doorways to avoid prowling Zoms, even eluding a group of looters with something more violent in mind.

What was that old saying? In the end, we all die alone.

She certainly felt alone now. Sure, Suzie and Amanda were in the car with her, but she could hardly carry on an intelligent adult discussion with either of them. She was left with her own thoughts, and those centered on death and destruction.

In the past, she was constantly afraid of dying. Now she was afraid for the others as well. Could she go on if Chick died? How heartbroken would she be if adorable little Amanda were killed? How many more friends would she lose?

She gripped the wheel tighter with her left hand and kept her bandaged right one in her lap.

* * * *

Moose was almost bouncing in his seat with excitement. “Dude, we’re finally gonna do it! We’re gonna kick some alien ass!”

Jason chimed in. “This is gonna be so awesome!”

Then it was Tim’s turn. “Have either of you been in a real war? It’s not all kicking ass and taking names. There’s a lot of pain and suffering. When people die, you get rotting piles of putrid flesh that stink so bad you think you’ll never get the stench out. War isn’t something to celebrate; it something to avoid at all costs. We may feel we have to do this, but let’s not act like we’re going to the junior prom, all giddy with anticipation.”

“Wow,” Moose said. “Aren’t you a Debbie Downer.”

The trip proceeded in silence for the rest of the way.

* * * *

Daniels wrestled with his own internal demons. After Afghanistan, he swore he’d never take up weapons again in anger. He had to break that promise to himself in order to survive. He’d come to terms with that. He hadn’t killed by choice, but by necessity. But now, he was going out of his way to attack and kill others.

The rational side of his brain said it was survival of the fittest. It’s our innate desire to survive and procreate. It’s perfectly natural and reasonable. Besides, it’s not murder, it’s war.

The emotional side laughed at the argument as simple rationalization. The truth was, he could have run away and hidden, but instead he had chosen to kill another sentient being. In fact, dozens or hundreds of them, if things went according to plan. He didn’t have a problem with killing soldiers, but he couldn’t be sure that he would kill
only
soldiers. There were probably thousands of civilians in the city now, and no way to avoid collateral damage in the attack. Could he live with himself if he killed innocent women and children?

The rational side retaliated with the statement that even the civilians were invaders who are benefiting from the wholesale extermination of the human race, and therefore deserved to die every bit as much as the alien soldiers.

With a deep breath, he tabled that internal debate for another time. He had a mission to carry out. He’d deal with his conscience later.

* * * *

Chrissy reached Maple Hills Power Substation #2 and stopped in front of the gate at the chain-link fence. There were big “No Trespassing” and “Danger! High Voltage” signs on the gate and periodically along the fence.

She got out and opened the back door. Then she handed the bolt cutters to Suzi, who had two good hands to work with. It took some effort, but she managed to cut through the chain. Chrissy threw the gate wide and then got back in the Jilt and drove in. She had less than half an hour in which to locate the support towers for the massive power lines extending to the city, plant the explosives and blow them all to hell. She had better get moving.

When Chrissy reached the first target, she backed in, stopped with the engine running and got out. Then she handed Suzi the box containing ten bricks of C-4 to carry, and they walked over to one of the four massive “feet” of the huge steel-girder pylon sitting atop five-foot-high concrete pillars. There she placed two bricks of C-4, one above the other on the front of the foot. It was awkward, doing it left-handed, but she managed. Then she looked at her watch, noted the time, set two timers to eighteen minutes and fourteen seconds and inserted them into the bricks. She pressed both start buttons simultaneously.

She repeated the process for the other foot on the same side of the pylon. The goal was to knock two of the four feet out from under the pylon, so it would tip over and crash down, taking the power lines with it.

She and Joanie went back to the Jilt and drove to the other pylon and repeated the actions.

At 9 pm, give or take a second, all eight bricks would go off and the assault would begin.

* * * *

“Sir,” the command center CommTech called out, “there’s something odd going on outside the city.”

FronCar walked over to him. “Odd? How so?”

YoldWab pointed to two spots on the holo he displayed. “These are showing up on thermal. They don’t look like discrete objects, but more amorphous, like warm clouds. And they appear to be moving quickly.”

FronCar stared at the image. “That
is
odd. I’ve never seen anything like it. What does the low-light imaging show?”

“That’s just it. The images show nothing there.”

“Could there be something wrong with your equipment or the imaging sensors?”

“I’m running level-two diagnostics now, but the level-one tests showed no problems.”

“Very well. Let’s dispatch a squad to take a look at the area, just in case. Let me know if the diagnostics show anything.”

* * * *

Because Moose’s vehicle was approaching the southeast part of the city, it was the next to arrive at its destination, just outside the faint glow of the alien’s protective barrier. Sixteen more minutes until the power dropped and brought down the barrier.

That’s when the fun would begin. He shut off the engine and waited with anticipation.

* * * *

Daniels couldn’t afford to drive any faster, but time was running out. Sweat from tension trickled down his face. He’d had to backtrack a couple of times to avoid wrecks in the road and that had cut into the buffer he’d allowed for such things. Plus, because he was heading to the southwest side of town, he had farther to travel than the other two teams.

With less than four minutes to spare, he rounded a curve and finally spotted the glowing poles that indicated the alien barrier just ahead. With a sigh of relief, he put the Jilt in idle and waited for the fun to begin.

* * * *

“Sir,” the CommTech called out again, “one of the anomalies is beginning to fade.”

FronCar back walked over to him. “Fade?” He took a closer look.

Indeed, the warm fog to the southeast was noticeably dimmer than the one to the southwest, and both fogs had stopped moving.

“That can’t be a coincidence, both anomalies stopping just outside the barrier on opposite sides of the city. Perhaps the indies have a military presence in the area after all.”

He called his second-in-command. “JesBronn, something may be up. Scramble two attack flights. We’ll send them targeting information. Also, send two squads to the same coordinates. If the indies are somehow up to something, I need to know what.”

“Immediately, sir!”

* * * *

It took only three minutes for the two squads to board their respective vehicles and head in opposite directions. The attack flights lifted off a minute later.

* * * *

Chrissy waited as the seconds ticked down on her watch. She had moved the Jilt to a safe distance. Now it was just a matter of waiting and watching in the rear view mirror to be sure everything went according to plan.

Three…two…one…

At zero, a rapid sequence of explosions created a blinding flash and a tremendous blast that threw chunks of concrete and steel in every direction. Several hit the back of the Jilt, damaging the adaptive optics cameras and LEDs. But none penetrated the vehicle.

“Owie!” Amanda bawled. “That scared me!”

Momentarily stunned by the flash and the impacts, Chrissy let out her breath and took another look in the mirror.

“Sorry, pumpkin, but it needed to be done.”

Accompanied by the groan of wrenching metal, both pylons began to tilt and fall. After fifteen seconds that seemed to take forever, the far pylon came crashing down in a heap of twisted metal. The power lines that it supported stretched and then snapped, creating a high-voltage arc followed by a shower of sparks.

* * * *

In the command center, everything went black for a second, and then the lights flickered back on. But the communications gear and the rest of the equipment necessary to run the operation would take longer to reset.

FronCar opened his mouth to demand an answer when the ground shook beneath his feet and the windows rattled.

“What in MemKar’s name?”

He reached for a communicator to call JesBronn, but the comm system was still down. He ran out the front door in time to see the red-orange glow of the explosion reflected in the clouds overhead. Then he ran for the nearest barracks. Already, people flooded the streets in a panic.

* * * *

As soon as Daniels saw the barrier poles flicker, he put the Jilt into gear, ready to stomp on the accelerator. But before he could, the barrier came back to life.

“Shit! What happened?”

He wished he could call Chrissy on a walkie-talkie, but he’d decided against them on the grounds that the aliens might be able to pinpoint their respective positions if they intercepted the calls. Now he regretted that decision.

* * * *

Moose did hit the accelerator and then almost instantly had to slam on the brakes, throwing everyone forward against their seatbelts.

“This can’t be good. Come on, Chrissy, you can do it. We’re counting on you.”

He crossed his fingers and wished hard.

* * * *

The near pylon had tilted nearly twenty degrees, but then the stub of one of the blown legs hit the concrete footing and it stopped falling. The power lines had enough slack that they hadn’t torn free.