Conquest ~ Indian Hill 3 ~ A Michael Talbot Adventure (32 page)

Beth fought down panic at the thought of spending a sleepless night in a store room with no possibility of escape. Surely
,
the sound of the gunshots wo
uld bring help, wouldn’t it? No.
S
he had to be honest with herself, it was more likely that anybody that had heard
was
going
to barricade themselves in. Beth moved to the far wall and sli
d
down as quietly as possible.

“
I guess it’s going to be a long night
,”
s
he said almost inaudibly. Sampson turned and imperceptibly nodded
.
H
e took two steps toward her
,
turned back around and unceremoniously plopped
to the floor. His body supplied
ample heat to her rapidly cooling legs. Beth almost couldn’t believe it, even as it happened. Her eyes fell like a stone, she was asleep before her head hit her chest. Sampson propped his head on his front paws, he dozed but not too deeply, nightmares of his butchered family haunted his dreams.

Beth awoke to Sampson’s massive muzzle nudging her arm. Beth stood up slowly and went to the front of the storeroom to look through the glass partitions that at one time
housed
the dairy section. Sunlight was slowing creeping along the floor of the store and right behind it
,
quiet as death was
Pegged
, his eyes blazed
as
his head swiveled f
rom side-to-side as he tried to take every
thing in. Beth held her breath as she slowly lowered
herself so she wasn’t quite as exposed. Sampson bristled as he watched the man come up the far aisle. Beth moved without thinking as her pursuer disappeared down another aisle. She opened the storeroom door and motioned for the dog to go through. He didn’t need any
further
urging. Beth and Sampson moved to the opposite side of the store, Beth keeping careful to make sure she was never
out in the open
, her
heart
leapt
when she came around the corner and stepped in a semi congealed pool of blood, if she hadn’t had Sampson to brace against she w
ould have landed in the gelatin-
like liquid. Sampson skirted
the carnage, never taking his eyes of the front of the store. Beth contained her angst and managed to not make an uncontrolled run for freedom. She was still scared
the madman
had somehow noiselessly
backtracked
toward
th
e
m and would mow her down the second she left the relative safety of the aisle. Sampson seemed to sense her trepidation
and
apparently was not of the same mind that the bad man was waiting
.
H
e almost casually walked to the front and stopped
,
waiting for Beth to follow.

Fine, apparently at least o
ne of us knows what he’s doing.

Sampson wagged his tail. Upon successfully exiting the store Beth went to the left so as to be out of sight from the windows. She took her first big intake of air in over
ten
minutes and it felt good.

***

He
eyed the store room door for over
fifteen
minutes to discern if the
re
was any movement in the
re. I
t was impossible for anyone to be that motionless
.
U
nless he had been spotted and she was merely waiting for him to come out
in
the open, which he would have to do to get to the door. But maybe she was asleep and that
wa
s why there was nothing going on. If that was the case
, then
he should just
open
the door and be done with her, but what of the other
presence
?
M
aybe they had taken shifts, there was no way they were both asleep, was there? He hated being this indecisive, this was something more the bitch was going to pay
for
.
G
ood or bad
,
Pegged
had never truly p
ondered any action he did. Only after it was long over would he spare a short moment to mull over his decisions and then it was never an analytical process
,
it was more of a sweet remembrance. 

CHAPTER FORT
Y
-SEVEN

Dennis was sullen, looking at his rapidly cooling cup of coffee as
I
sat down next to him.
He
briefly looked up to acknowledge
my
presence and then stared back at his coffee as if he fully expected something magical to issue forth.
I
felt awkward, on one hand
I
was happier than a pig in shit that
I
was back at the Hill amongst
my
friends, on the other hand
I
knew the pain Dennis was going through
,
so
I
was attempting to reign in
my
jubilation.

“It’s good to see you
,
Dennis
,” I said
.
I
put an arm around
his
shoulder.

“It’s good to see you too
,
Mike
.
” Dennis
finally looked
over at
me
,
instead of the steam issuing forth from
his
cup of coffee
.

“I’ve got to admit
,
I never thought
this day would come. Escaping the aliens the first time was a one in a million chance, being able to do it again pretty much seemed like an impossibility.”

Dennis nodded in agreement.
“We’re going to die
here
,”
he
added.

I
nodded in agreement.
“I don’t see any other
outcome
.
But
it’s not going to be a slaughter
,
Dennis. We’re going to do some serious payback for all that we lost. They’ll win, they’ll take this Hill
—h
ell
,
they’ll take the planet
,
but it won’t be something they will soon forget. They aren’t
super beings
, they bleed and they die just like we do. They just had the advantage of surprise and superior technology. But the surprise is gone and we’ve got some of their technology now. And one more thing, we’re way more pissed off than they are.”

Dennis smiled.
“You got that right
,”
he
said
flashing a smile for the first time in days.

“Hey
,
bud, any chance there’s something around here a little stronger than coffee?”

“Yeah
,
Frank was saving a little something for when
I got back from my last mission.
N
ow’s as good a time as any.”

“Frank would w
ant it that way
,” I said
.

“You know
,
bud, I think you’re right
,” Dennis said
standing up and heading out the door of the cafeteria.

CHAPTER FO
R
TY-EIGHT

Eastern Seaboard Ground Occupation
- Location Northwest of Boston - Lawrence Area

“
Sir,
we have lost contact with the detachment sent to the
Walpole Township
,”
t
he
S
ub
Ground C
ommander
of landing party 117B
said nervously. Landing parties around the globe
have
been attacked sometimes viciously, but none yet
have
taken the damage of the Boston contingent.

“Sub
Ground C
ommander, get in touch with the
m
othership
,” the
Ground Commander
said
, his upper lip twitching in the universal sign of n
ervousness among Genogerians. “
Tell them we will need reinforcements
—
a battalion if they’ve got it
—
and have them sent to the
Town center in Walpole.” The
Ground Commander
knew the personnel around the globe were spread thin, until true warships from their home plane
t
arrived
,
this was more of a containment operation than of an occupation. The
Ground Co
mmander still didn’t understand why they hadn’t waited for the larger force to arrive
,
but he knew in the eyes of the
P
rogerians
,
he and his kind were expendable and the new
Supreme C
ommander was of
the mind
set to show his higher-
ups he was worthy of his own war vessel by taking this little planet on the outskirts of the known universe with only a heavy scout vessel. The commander knew th
e
whole excursion was teetering on the brink of disaster, if the hu-mans had any idea how truly low in numbers the ground forces were they would rise from their holes and slaughter the Genogerians. “And
Ground Sub C
ommander
,
tell them to hurry.”

“Yes
, sir
,
”
t
he
S
ub
Ground C
ommander said as he rushed out the door to relay the message to the communications officer.

Within
six
hours
,
close to a
thousand
heavily armed shock troops began to set up camp in Walpole’s center. A stream of troop ships
clogged the sky as they jockeyed for position to land, deposit their cargo
,
and head back to do it again.