Ally or Alien: A Sci-Fi Novel (5 page)

Taurus kept his voice cool, because he knew: those who lost it, truly lost it.

"I used the most powerful weapon on Earth."

The representative's right eyebrow cocked. Taurus squeezed the silence out of the moment. He wanted to savor every bit.

"Logic. Filled with the armor-piercing ammunition called facts."

"Very funny."

The woman averted her eyes and marched away. Taurus watched her defeat with glee as he waved her goodbye in a melodramatic way.

"When you negotiate with your soulless shells, tell them the AC Marines remember."

The representative rolled her eyes and flipped him off in the distance.

Little schmuck, Taurus thought and wiped his hands.

Now he had to find the perfect candidate for the mission.

Whom was he kidding—he had the perfect person already in mind…

12

Fuck these Newtards.

Bellrock pressed his armor against the wooden barricade as the flood of bullets impacted the other side. 

Twap, twap, twap.

The rounds battered his five inch layer of protection.

"Cover me, goddamn it," he said into the commlink, which fizzled with interference. 

Bravo Delta II responded with hesitation.

"Sir, I'm pinned down."

Not you, too, Bellrock thought.

He checked the digital ammo counter of his standard issue, flechette-based combat rifle: twenty-one rounds left. Plus three thirty round magazines inside the mag pouches of his urban camouflage, medium-armor suit. Enough to cause a ruckus, enough to win against this Newtard fireteam, trying to give him hell. Bellrock peeked past his barricade and saw two of them rushing next to the crates on the other side.

Four in total, splitting up.

Damn bastards tried to flank him again.

Not in this dimension.

"JD, I'm going to flush them out with a smart bang. Cover my ass and go suppressive."

JD, a heavy assault, carried a Stryker LMG with enough firepower to mow down a battalion. Sure, the 10.5 kg firearm weighed him down, which made him a terrible front runner but a perfect support unit. Bellrock primed his smoke grenade, threw the cylinder-shaped device over his barricade and watched the sucker bounce off the far away crates, spreading the clouds with a bang.

Gotcha. 

He flipped on his thermal vision, selected auto-fire and burst around the cover spot. He fired during the run, which meant accuracy was a bitch, even with the digital stabilizer set on max, but Bellrock didn't care. He unleashed volley after volley into the silhouettes spreading through the cloud he had just released. Two suckers cracked down under the fire, two scrambled for cover and wanted to return shots when JD's suppressive bullet flood rained down on them.  The 'poor' Newtype had no choice but to stay ducked, when Bellrock jumped into their cover line, switched to his scattergun and pumped the pellets into the pinned down soldiers. 

One pump for you, boom.

One pump for you, fruit.

Double-action deluxe. 

The two downed like tanks in the water. Two more head crosses added to Bellrock's HUD, but this wasn't over yet. The leader was still alive, hiding behind his final barricade.

Head down, confidence lost. 

The shell snuck behind the best cover spot of them all, but he was outgunned now. 

Bellrock called all three of his remaining team mates and told them to advance toward the final spot. They took position behind the crates and eyed the final row of sandbags that divided them from winning. The Newtype leader hunkered down and sighed in his cranky voice.

"Since I'm the last survivor, I speak on behalf of all the Newtype in my team. We lost, you win. It's over."

Behind Bellrock's cover, JD looked up.

"So that's it?"

Bellrock shook his head.

"It's over when every single one of them is down."

He ordered his team to commence the final assault.

A flank attack from both sides, circumnavigating the sandbag barricades that shielded the leader from a front assault.

Let's dominate, Bellrock thought.

That's how it was supposed to be, like back in the Separatist War. 

The Newtype leader, still wincing behind his sandbagged castle of defense, whined.

It was the only thing he could do at this point. He sounded like a teenage girl stuck in an endless loop of her periods. 

"Hey man, did you just listen to what I say? I give up."

He doubled his volume and sounded twice as pathetic. 

"I. Give. Up."

22.3 meters away from the freak, Bellrock shook his head in disgust. 

No honor, no will to fight.

Pathetic to the P.

"Don't care."

Never did.

Bellrock watched his team on the left and the one on the right flanking the leader with precise shots. 

Volleys for the loser.

Too bad Bellrock wasn't the one who unleashed the goodness.

With the leader taken down, Bellrock's team cheered and stretched their arms up high. The defenders of Earth roared like lions in shiny armor. They carried boundless energy to take on the universe, and then some. 

Just like in the old days.

Oh, those terrible and exciting old days. 

Even today's win wasn't going to bring them back.

Nothing could.

Shame, but hey, the war moved on.

Just on different fronts.

Bellrock marched toward the sandbag barricades and bent over them. Saw the leader cringing on the ground, throwing him a stare full of hurt. 

"Sucks to be you," Bellrock said with the deepest voice imaginable.

The guy on the ground winced more, if that was even possible.

"Next time, you're playing Newtype."

13

Bellrock helped the 'dead' Newtype leader back up.

The victim's real name: Todd K. Philips. 

Every single killed soldier, both on the Newtype and the Earth Defense front, arose from their graveyard and joined Bellrock standing next to the sandbags. The Earth-Team grinned, the Newtype looked a bit...beaten.

Shame and perma-losses tanked morale. 

One of them said,

"How do you do it, Bellrock? Coming in like Rambo and mowing us down like puppets."

"I just picture your mother and get into it."

Most of the men laughed, except for the offended one. 

"Very funny. But Todd is right, next time we're going to be Team Earth. Always playing the Newtards hurts our morale, heck, it's probably the reason why we keep losing."

Bellrock spat next to his boots.

"Complaining, loser boy, is not a strategy. Work on your team communication, spend more time on urban tactics and for God's sake, go to the gym once in a while. You look like a bulimic skeleton."

More laughter from the group, which made poor Kim slump his shoulders even more.

Bellrock felt sorry and gave him a bro-hug.

"It's all good. There's no shame in losing against the best. Tell you what—first round at Beer Valley's goes on me."

The men cheered.

Frustration vaporized in a snap.

"Now take a shower. Y'all smell like rat burgers."

The men nodded and spread out, talked about today's match and high-fived each other. No matter how hardcore every shooting session got, they still remained team mates afterwards. 

The bond from the Separatist War days still glued them together. Like chains made of titanium steel, oiled by loyalty and patriotism.

Bellrock watched his mates hit the lockers when the hall owner's scratchy voice sounded from behind.

"Bellrock, someone wants to speak to you."

"Not now, man. I'm sweaty and tired. Tell the person to wait, unless she's a sex goddess from Venus. Then I’ll be there in a sec.”

The owner tilted his head and smiled. 

"It's the Secretary of Space Defense."

14

Bellrock thought the owner cracked another one of his lame-ass jokes. But walking up to the window-framed doors, he saw the big guy standing outside, dressed in fancy pants and jacket, grinning his winning smile. It was unbelievable to say the least, but miracles did happen.

Even in Dallas.

Bellrock opened the door and stepped outside with his arms stretched. The hot Texan sun blinded his eyes, so he shielded his vision and went for the hug attack.

"You smelly old bastard."

"It's good to see you, too, Belly."

Only Taurus McCloud was allowed to call him Belly. Everyone else, as long as they were male, received an ass-whopping.

One does not simply bell-lify the Bellrock. He hugged Taurus like a long-lost brother and squeezed his hand hard.

"Seriously, it's great to see you again."

Taurus nodded and offered two chilled cokes he must had grabbed from the nearby drink dispenser.

"Want a coke?"

"Sure. But none of that Zero shit. Give me sugar or give me death."

"Here you go," Taurus said with a smile.

"Is there a place where we can talk in private?"

He looked around. Lots of people, personnel and customers alike, traversed the hall inside. Most of them minded their own business but some stared at the semi-legendary war veterans. 

"We can have a walk 'round the perimeter if you don't mind the sun."

Taurus nodded, pulled up his sleeves and exposed his brown skin.

"Look at me—I could use some color."

"Mine's not better," Bellrock said and flashed his arm. 

Whiter than bleached cream, except for the Asian symbol.

Taurus grinned.

"What's up with Chinese sign?"

"Oh, that's the Japanese kanji for serenity."

"You and serenity? Get out."

They both chuckled and started walking. The unforgiving Texan sun began roasting their bodies. Thank God the coke was stored inside cryo-containers that kept the liquid to a cool 38F. The gentlemen downed their dark elixir and unleashed a bit of smalltalk before cutting to the core.

Except Bellrock was not a Cut & Chat kind of guy.

"So, Taurus, cut the BS and give it to me straight. What's all that Martian mumbo-jumbo about?"

"I assume you watched the news."

"They keep battering my feed. I can't even watch a holo-porn without getting pestered by alien-related stuff."

Taurus nodded.

"Well, then you might know that the alien life form has crashed the red planet and survived the impact. Thanks to a group of trusted military advisors, I have convinced the president to send a recon team all the way to Mars to gauge the creature's threat levels. We could have asked the Newtype to do that, but you know they can't be trusted."

Oh, Bellrock knew all about that.

Years of battle experience had proved their stealthy scheming.

"Damn shells. It's a wonder they've made it that far into the galaxy. Isn't expansion against their twisted ideology of sustainability?"

"I really don't care much about their ideology—it’s the alien I'm worried about."

"Got it."

Bellrock stared at the desert yellow that melted with the horizon. The vast landscape made love to the azure blue sky and bedazzled the veteran’s visual senses every time anew. 

Texas, you beautiful dame. 

His attention shifted back to Taurus.

"So you want me to go to Mars and check out how dangerous that monster is?"

"You and a scientist provided by NASA. I want a military guy with war expertise and zero infatuation over Newtype-related matters. You have the experience and the body to accomplish that."

He paused.

"Besides, you've trained and fought in zero G conditions."

"I thought we were going planetside?"

"You never know."

Bellrock nodded and finished his coke. Sexy coldness surfed down his gamut and cooled his inner engines. 

"When?"

They finished a circle around the shooting station's perimeter and repositioned at the entrance of the hall.

"As soon as possible. Your team mate is already training. The freighter is getting prepped at the International Astroport as we speak. You'll have to endure a two-week intense training program before you're shooting up the stars again."

Bellrock released a groan. 

Sounded tempting, not gonna lie. 

Teaching Army folks at the range was a blast, but he did miss the old times. The rush of going into hostile, interplanetary territory, storming stations and unloading high-velocity rounds into the enemy's shell. Besides, he was still in his prime, thanks to advances in nanomedicine. However, worries lingered. Would he manage digging up his past? Ten years of therapy-worth trauma still lurked below the surface.  

"Sounds awesome, Tee, but I've got a big fan base here. Besides, so many servicemen need my help."

Taurus nodded without looking up. 

"What's your priority, Belly?"

He thought about the true answer and the one Taurus wanted to hear.

"Serving the AC better than anyone else."

Taurus nodded.

"What do you think is the best way to serve the AC—teaching at a shooting range or gathering intel about humanity's worst enemy?"

Bellrock's rigid grimace broke into a big, fat grin.

"You slimy little sucker."

Taurus looked up with a boyish smirk.

"What?"

"You sound like one of these officer sitters. What the hell happened, Tee? Did you take lessons in nose-diving?"

"Blame my wife. She grilled my nuts when I had trouble convincing the president."

They exchanged a smile of camaraderie.

Almost felt like the old days, when their ranks were more leveled. Bellrock wondered how much money the old bastard was making now, after all, he lived in Falls Church. The Eden which mortals couldn't access.

But that wasn't the issue.

The veteran had made up his mind.

"Fuck it. I'm in."

Taurus' face lightened up. The man glowed like the sun high above, and that was quite the accomplishment.

"You sure?"

Bellrock glimpsed into the endlessness of Texas again. The golden land shone with endless pride inside and sent him a wind of confidence. It looked like a sign from the creator himself, telling him: do it, son.