Conquest ~ Indian Hill 3 ~ A Michael Talbot Adventure (19 page)

***

Cut t
he bitch’s head cut clean off. The thought spurred him on.
The Bitch's
footprints were getting much more defined, with each passing minute, he was making great gains, at th
e
pace
he was at
he figured to have her in sight within the next hour. And let her see him
—
what did he care
—
what was she going to do
, shoot him? He laughed, crazily.
Where was she going to go
?
He hadn’t seen a car since the
journey began
,
he didn’t see any reason to believe that that was going to change anytime soon. Besides
,
God was on his side
—
what could go wrong?

CHAPTER T
W
ENTY-SIX

Dennis was primed and ready as were his men. The distance to Dedham was only
eight
miles as the crow fl
e
w
, unfortunately Dennis knew they would not be taking the crow’s route. He and his men had
twelve
bristle laden miles to trek and they only had a couple of hours to do it in, if they were going to be able to complete their mission and get back undetected, it would be tight and he had no
i
llusions
,
it would
not
be extremely dangerous, but the
time
s were
inherently
dangerous. The time for pondering was over
,
the time for action had come
.
P
hysically and mentally he felt he was up to the task. Dennis’ men were chomping at the bit to finally get into some action, the majority of them were either prior military or still technically in their respective services until their fighting forces were forcibly disbanded. Most had a personal grudge to bear. Dennis had to reign them in more than once during the mission briefing
,
telling them it was
a
recon
mission and nothing more. This was not the time or place to make a stand, soon but not yet.

“Alright
,
everyone pack enough supplies for two nights and tape up your magazine cartridges I don’t want any extraneous noise. We leave in ten
,” Dennis said
as he picked up his papers and headed to his own quarters, hopefully
,
he thought to himself
,
not for the last time. But something was different he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, some
thing just wasn’t quite right. “Nerves,”
he muttered as he moved on.

Paul was nowhere in sight as Dennis and his men moved out
.
He
didn’t expect him to be, but he had hoped

“Good luck
,
my friend
,” Paul said
as he watched Dennis’ men slide into the edge of the woods some
hundred fifty
yards away.

“He’ll be fine
,
Paul
,
” Frank said as he came out on Paul’s side.

“What are you doing here?” Paul asked as he turned to look at Frank.

“Same thing you are
,”
Frank answered. Both men turned to look where
D
ennis’ men had slipped into the twilight, no longer in sight.

Dennis
surge
d
with
pride as he turned to look back at his home for the last
few months
and saw Paul and Frank standing at the exit way.

***

It was close
to
ten
o’clock
when Dennis finally got his men into position.
His
heart pounded as he looked upon the scene below him, an unfriendly alien race had beach headed on planet
E
arth. And they weren’t wasting any time setting up. As fast as air ships could land
,
workers were unloading them. Dennis wa
sn’t entirely sure what the off
loaded containers held but any army relied
heavily on weaponry, ammunition
,
and food. Dennis began to formulate a plan to disrupt th
e
supply chain, but he was under strict orders
,
this mission was a recon mission
only
.
H
e reasoned by the time he got th
e
intel back to
HQ
they would of effectively landed unhindered and would have a stable base from which to launch their occupation.
Dennis was pondering a few well-
placed rockets when one of his men came crawling up.

“Sir
,
one of our scouts has reported that we have visitors.” Dennis’ heart skipped into overdrive, a few rockets was one thing but he wasn’t sure if he was quite ready for full on contact just yet.

The corporal pointed to a place about
three
hundred yards off to their immediate left, a small sloping grass embankment. Dennis grabbed his night vision goggles to see
a dozen
armed men slowly crawling directly into the alien encampment.

“What the hell are they doing?” Dennis said more to himself. “They’re going to get themselves killed and more importantly
,
they’re going to give our position away.” Dennis took
of
f
his hat to rub his head. “Corporal
,
tell the men to get ready to move.”

“Out or in
, sir
?
”
t
he corporal asked.

“I haven’t decided that yet. Just tell them to be ready. Stupid
friggin’
rednecks with shotguns are going to get us in a world of hurt in a matter of minutes.”

Dennis could see it in his corporal’s eyes, he knew the man was scared but he would do what he was told and what his training had taught him, but the fact still remained he had no desire to see what waited on the other side
to
night. Dennis’s second in command,
G
unnery
Sergeant
Hayes, a short stocky man who could probably beat one of the aliens in an arm wrestl
ing competition
made his way over.

“I just heard
, sir
. What are your plans
?” he asked.

“Don’t have any at the moment
—
this wasn’t in the contingency handbook. What are your thoughts?” Dennis asked, knowing full well the answer still lied with him no matter what the
g
unney offered.

“Well
, sir
, my first disposition is to let those yahoos get what’s coming to them and tactfully pull our men back before this place lights up
like
a Christmas tree
.”

“But?” Dennis prodded.

“But
, sir
, they’re
doing exactly what I want to do.
M
aybe not in the exact way I’d go about it, but they’re going to go and exact a little revenge for all the shit those bastards have done to us in the last
two
years and I’d like to be there to get my own little piece of that.”

“Gunney
,
get the men into proper firing lanes, I don’t want to fully engage the enemy but I would like to give those ‘yahoos’ as you call them some sort of fighting chance should they began to volley off some shots.”

The gunney
began to move off to
issue orders. “One more thing
,
G
unney, if we start to take fire from any of those airships I want a hasty retreat no matter w
hat those men down there are in
to, have I made myself clear?”

“Like mud
,”
the gunney
answered with a gleam in his eye.

The gunney
came back
three
minutes later. “All set
, sir
. And one more
thing
, sir
,”
t
he gunney
said as he checked his clip and made sure his safety was off.

“
Yes
,”
Dennis replied.

“I’
d like to take out that big ugly
one on top of the unloading ramp and I told Lance Corporal Carver to put an RPG round in that
landed
ship right after
I do it
.”

Dennis found it hard to smile but he found a way as he also checked his clip and
took
his weapon
off safety
.
“Get it done.”

The
g
unney was looking at the potential battlefield through his night vision goggles when
he
sighed audibly
.

“What’s the matter
,
G
unney?” Dennis asked with a little concern in his voice.

“You’re about to find out
, sir
,”
t
he
g
unney answered hastily, as a loud whoosh passed near to their location, followed quickly by a loud explosion.

“What the hell
?
W
ho the hell gave that order?” Dennis yelled.

“Ah
, sir,
apparently our fr
iends down there
had the same thought in mind
.
T
hey took out the guard on the loading ramp.” The implications were clear,
Corporal
Carver
had seen the big alien
go down
and loosed his RPG as instructed. It was probably as big a shock to the invading men as it was to the aliens.

The aliens didn’t panic as one might assume from the surprise attack, the ones that were still in fighting capacity immediately took defensive postures and
proceeded
as best they could to ascertain where the threat had
originat
ed.
W
hat they didn’t know was the insurgents were already amongst them. Dennis had to appreciate the thoroughness with which the men down on the landing site were taking care of business. To him
,
they weren’t so much
yahoos
as they were commandos. Alien guards were falling wherever the men went, but running room was quickly evaporating as more and
more of the enemy became aware that
the threat was
in their midst
. Dennis watched as the alien noose began to tighten around the men.

“Gunney, do you see how the ring of aliens is beginning to constrict?” Dennis said.

“I see it
, sir
,”
t
he
g
unney answered.

“I want you to get your men t
o concentrate fire on the north
east side.
I want a gaping hole on the same side where the men made their initial intrusion.”

“Understood
,
sir
.”

In a matter of seconds, all hell broke loose on the alien defensive ring, huge
G
enogerians were cut to pieces as lead reigned down from above.

“It’s good to see they can die
,”
t
he
g
unney said as he paused a moment to reload his
M-16
.