Pit Bulls vs Aliens (20 page)

With over half the alien forces out of commission and the rest still under heavy attack, the creatures made a beeline back toward their ship. Half of those would not even make it back to the tree line. Every alien was being swarmed by as many pit bulls as could find a place to sink their teeth. It truly looked like humans being swarmed by bees as the alien invaders swung wildly and screamed out in pain.

The rest managed to get into the trees, and the foliage and undergrowth hampered the dogs’ maneuverability somewhat, giving the aliens a temporary reprieve to make a decent run for it. But they were in for a very unpleasant surprise. As they neared the old dye line, where the spikes currently were erected off each coast, the tops of the spikes were illuminated again. That only happened when they activated the shield.

And that’s what had happened. As the fleeing aliens ran with all their might back toward the safety of their ship, they ran directly into the invisible shield, right where it had been this morning before lifting.

Some bounced backward hard as the momentum and weight of their bodies suddenly hit the transparent barrier. Several went down hard, only to jump up and rush forward again, beating their fists on the shield as if begging to be let in. Panic struck their faces as they realized their colleagues were protecting the ship from the new weapons. Fear struck their faces as they realized they were not going to be saved. Hatred struck their faces as they realized they were expendable. Some tried to climb the shield. Others turned and fought bravely. Nothing helped.

The colonel almost felt sorry for them. Almost. He gave the order for the soldiers to finish off all of them. The troops advanced to find the remaining alien forces sitting with their backs against the shield, trying to cover themselves from the ongoing attacks. The human soldiers moved the hordes of pit bulls away and terminated each alien without mercy.

The day was won.

Major Strafford came by in his jeep to pick up the colonel and Francisco, both still shaken from the fight. “Come on, let’s end this.”

The colonel smiled. The deep red marks were still visible around his neck. He looked around and saw Francisco still on the ground. He and the major rushed to him.

“Are you okay?” the colonel asked.

Francisco sat up slowly and clutched his throat. “I can hardly breathe. He almost crushed me.”

“Thank goodness that pit bull came when he did,” the colonel said.

Francisco nodded and looked around and saw the pit bull lying motionless on the ground. “No, no, no,” he whispered and began crawling on the ground toward the dog. Tears began falling from his eyes.

“We need to go,” the major said.

“You guys go ahead,” Francisco said and kept crawling toward the pit bull.

The colonel nodded and he and the major drove away.

Francisco reached the dog and started running his hands though his fur. “You crazy dog.” He lay across him gently and started kissing his head. He then sat up and lifted the dog’s head and placed it in his lap. Tears continued streaming down Francisco’s face as he ran his hands over the familiar white fur with black speckles and the brindled saddle shape over the dog’s back. “I didn’t even know you were here. You’re going to be okay, Gentle Beast. You’re going to be okay.”

Thomas, Sally, and Darren had stood at the command center watching the battle unfold. They cheered as it became clear the plan had worked.

“Guys?” Sally said and tapped Thomas on the shoulder. “Guys, look.”

The two men followed the direction of Sally’s finger and saw what she saw; a man was walking toward them carrying a dog in his arms. As the figure got closer, they realized it was Francisco and rushed to his aid.

“Help us,” Francisco said as they ran up to him. “Please help us.”

Sally examined the dog in his arms and took charge. “Darren, put a blanket over the conference table. Thomas, go get a medic.”

Francisco carried Gentle Beast into the command center and placed him on the makeshift gurney. As the medic arrived with her pack, she and Sally began working on Gentle Beast.

“His face looks pretty bad,” Sally said.

Francisco smiled. “No, that’s just his face.”

Back in the field, the major and the colonel headed back to the camp. About halfway back, the colonel told Major Strafford to stop.

“What is it, sir?” the major asked.

“This is ours,” the colonel said.

The major looked confused.

“This is ours,” the colonel repeated. “We won this today. We don’t move back anymore. Bring the command center here.”

The major grinned. “Yes, sir.” He got on the radio and passed along the order.

The command center, jeeps, and tents were moved to the south, and all the personnel set up camp. It marked the first time since the war began that new spikes would not fall and the shield would not be extended. It was also the first time the colonel allowed something else to happen. Unbeknownst to everyone, in the supply tents were cases of champagne and beer. He ordered them to be opened.

“Have a drink.”

Francisco looked up and saw Sally holding a beer. He smiled and took it.

“I think he’s going to be fine,” Sally said, looking at Gentle Beast still on the table. He was bandaged so much only a few parts of his body were visible. A tube ran into his front leg from an IV. “You don’t have to stay here. Why don’t you come outside for a while?”

Francisco smiled. “I’m fine here. I don’t want to leave him. Thanks for the beer.”

Sally smiled and left.

“Come on, have a drink,” Thomas said to Darren. “Celebrate. We just kicked some alien butt.”

Darren looked up at Thomas and at the others standing outside the command center. “I don’t know. I have a bad feeling.”

Colonel Jamison, the only other person not celebrating, heard the conversation and walked over beside Darren. “What’s on your mind, son?”

Darren shook his head. “Nothing has changed, sir. I know we won the battle today, and that’s great, but the aliens are still here. I half expected them to fly back to their mother ship and for that ship to leave the orbit around Earth. But the aliens are still here and the mother ship is still out there. According to these current reports from NASA, nothing has changed.”

“So you’re saying they haven’t given up?” the colonel asked.

Darren nodded. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“You think they’ll be back tomorrow with more forces?” Thomas asked.

“Maybe,” Darren said. “Maybe they’ll be back tomorrow with something worse. I mean, we’re talking about a civilization that has conquered space travel, among other technological achievements. What if they come back tomorrow with robots or something?”

Thomas searched the colonel’s face for any expression. There was none.

“Major?”

The major walked over. “Yes, sir, colonel?”

“No more celebrating tonight,” the colonel said. “Spread the word for everyone to be ready to fight tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir.” The major quickly left to deliver the orders.

“Okay, you guys are ruining my buzz,” Thomas said. He walked over and stood beside Sally. “Cheers, honey bunny.”

Sally smiled and bumped her champagne glass to Thomas’s beer can.

After everyone else had turned in for the night, the colonel stayed up late with Darren as they considered every possible scenario. “I guess we won’t really know until tomorrow,” the colonel concluded before both he and Darren called it a night.

The colonel was up bright and early the next morning, walking through the ocean of pit bulls, taking time to pet each one in arm’s reach. The food and water containers were still mostly full, and the colonel laughed to himself at all the fresh piles of doggie poop spread out all over the ground. He walked carefully as if he were stepping through a minefield.

As the others rose for the day and the soldiers began preparing themselves for whatever lay ahead, the colonel knelt down in the middle of all the dogs around him to say another prayer.

When the time neared that the shield would normally rise, he positioned himself on top of the command center for a better view. Using his field glasses, he watched for any sign of movement behind the shield. Finally he saw it, and it sent chills down his spine.

“You’re not going to believe this!” he yelled down at the others.

Everyone looked up. “Oh no,” Sally said. “What is it?”

The colonel continued to survey the enemy for several more seconds before lowering the field glasses and looking toward the ground where the others eagerly awaited the new information. He took a deep breath and said, “They have dogs.”

Darren gasped. Of all the scenarios they had imagined, this was not one of them. He looked out at all the pit bulls, then back to the colonel. “Big dogs?”

The colonel nodded. “Humongous.”

Word quickly spread down the front line, and the soldiers’ demeanor began to affect the dogs. They could sense something was wrong but weren’t sure what.

The colonel looked again and could see hundreds of giant dogs, and there was no telling how many were beyond his view. They were four times the size of the larger pit bulls, and like the aliens, they were very muscular with oversized heads. They were on long, thick leashes and were digging in their front paws, raring to go. But the big difference was the teeth. Whereas the colonel had never noticed the teeth of the aliens, the canines on these canines were extremely large.

The alarm sounded and the shield lifted as the aliens advanced with their dogs leading the way.

“What do we do, Colonel?” Francisco asked.

The colonel climbed down the ladder on the rear of the command vehicle. “Same as yesterday,” he said. “Let’s kick some butt.”

The soldiers nearby began to cheer and the attitude swept down the front lines. The dogs reflected the excitement and followed the jeeps and soldiers southward to meet the enemy. This time the pit bulls had no trouble knowing who the enemy was.

As the aliens cleared the tree line, they released their dogs. The massive hounds sprang forward. They resembled charging rhinos. The ground shook as their huge paws impacted the ground beneath them.

The pit bulls were undaunted and charged ahead at full speed. For stocky, muscular dogs, some of the pits were amazingly fast.

The colonel watched as the two canine species neared each other. It reminded him of when he was a kid and played marbles. You had a few strikers, the larger marbles, and then many of the smaller ones.

The pits and alien dogs met in the middle of the clearing, and that’s where the progress of the invaders stopped cold. The large alien dogs were powerful and mean to the core, but they were also bulky and slower than the Earth dogs. The pit bulls rushed them in numbers and attacked their vulnerable underbellies, legs, and paws. The large alien dogs lunged time and again toward a pit bull but came up empty. Yelps could be heard across the battlefield each time the powerful jaws of the pit bulls made contact.

Just like before, the pit bulls formed a strategy. But this time they formed close circles around the larger dogs and charged at will from any and all directions. The alien dogs had absolutely no defense against the onslaught of sharp teeth and the incredible strength of the jaw muscles of the pits.

The alien soldiers fired their weapons from the safety of the tree line, but hit empty ground, or sometimes their own dogs. They fired at will and soon their guns were out of power and useless.

The sun was barely halfway up the eastern sky when it became clear to everyone that this battle, like the one yesterday, was going to be decidedly one-sided. The large alien dogs fought bravely, but were simply outmatched in every way.

Within a couple of hours, the big alien dogs tucked tail and headed for the safety of their ship. When the soldier aliens saw them running back toward them, they panicked as well and turned to run back too.

Pit bulls followed them into the dense forest and pursued. And, like the day before, the aliens on the ship were taking no chances and the soldier aliens and giant dogs ran headfirst into the shield, which had been raised again without them knowing it.

And like the day before, they were easy pickings as the human troops quickly disposed of all the aliens and their pets trapped on this side of the shield.

When it was over, humans and pit bulls alike jumped up and down in celebration.

“We’ve got ’em beat, Colonel,” Francisco said.

The colonel nodded. “Yes, we do, son. Yes, we do.”

The colonel and Francisco drove back to the command center where most of the advisory group was likewise jumping up and down in celebration. The colonel got out of the jeep and hugged them individually as they all hugged one another. Everyone except Darren again.

The colonel noticed Darren’s look of depression. “You’re kidding me. They’re still not leaving.”

Darren shook his head as everyone else noticed something was wrong.

“What’s going on?” Dr. McNair asked.

“The aliens are still here,” Colonel Jamison said.

Everyone stopped celebrating.

Major Strafford rode up in his jeep, ready to celebrate too before seeing everyone’s expression. “I take it they haven’t left yet,” he said as he got out of his vehicle.

The colonel nodded. He wondered how the aliens could be beaten so badly the last two days and still be ready for more. He looked out over the sea of pit bulls and had an idea. “Dr. Mitchell?”

“Yes, sir?” Darren walked over to the colonel.

The colonel considered how to phrase his thoughts. “You told us once that you guys have a language based on math that any intelligent creature can understand, right?”

“Yes, that’s correct, Colonel.”

Everyone walked a little closer to find out what the colonel was getting at.

“Okay,” the colonel said. “Can you make it say anything you want?”

“I can’t,” Darren said. “But the people who developed it can make it say anything regarding a mathematical sequencing, I suppose.”

“Great.” The colonel walked a little closer to him. “Get them to make it say we have one million more pit bulls coming.”