Sullivan Saga 3: Sullivan's Watch (15 page)

Allen closed his eyes, and the hatchway opened. Sullivan stepped inside. Standing along one wall was an armed alien soldier. Sullivan paused, but the alien paid no attention to him.

“Where is it?”

“See behind the guard? It’s inside there, but it’s locked.”

Sullivan stepped up to the guard, Allen at his side.

“Give me a second,” Allen said.

The guard turned around and waved his hand in front of a panel. He seemed to be moving it in a specific pattern. The doors beside the panel slid open, revealing a metal cylinder with what looked like a glass dome on one end. The dome was glowing with an intense blue light, almost too bright for Sullivan to look at.

The guard stepped back, and Sullivan walked up to the device. He pulled it out and cradled it under one arm.

Sullivan turned to look at Allen, but his friend was gone. He darted his eyes toward the guard and ducked as the alien swung his energy weapon toward him. Sullivan kicked at the alien’s legs, and he went down face-first. He grabbed the gun as the alien fell. He aimed it and pulled the trigger, and the alien’s head disappeared in a flash of light.

“Frank! Where are you?”

Allen was nowhere in sight. Cursing, Sullivan bolted for the doorway he’d come through and, hoping he was following the right path, headed back toward his ship.

Fortunately, the hatches he’d come through were still open, but he didn’t know how long that would last.

Sullivan came across two aliens walking down the corridor and made quick work of them before they had a chance to react. By the time he got to the freighter, he’d killed four more.

He climbed into the pilot’s seat of the freighter and set the alien device beside him. He didn’t hear an alarm or see any flashing lights, but he knew the alien ship was now on full alert as the hatch leading into the small hangar began to close. They were sealing him in.

“Frank!” Sullivan yelled. “Where the hell are you?”

He powered up the freighter and lifted it off the floor of the hangar. He turned it toward the port, ready to flee as soon as it opened—if it opened.

“Go, Rick!”

Sullivan didn’t wait to question Allen’s voice. He fired the freighter’s engines as the port slid open.

“I’m sorry, Rick,” Allen said, moving up beside him. “Liz pulled me away again.”

Sullivan let out a breath. He checked the various monitors on the control panel. Several other hatches on the alien ship had opened up, sending fighters toward him. “Trouble. Is that shield down?”

“Yes,” Allen said. “Go!”

The freighter sped away from the alien ship with the fighters in pursuit. “I need to jump into hyperspace,” Sullivan said.

“Wait! I need to tell you how to use the device first. As soon as we’re in hyperspace, Liz is going to pull me away!”

“Then tell me!”

The freighter shook as a missile exploded next to it.

“It’s too late, Frank!” Sullivan said. “I can’t outmaneuver them.”

Allen nodded. “We tried.”

Another explosion shook the freighter, but this one was larger. Sullivan glanced down at his monitors. “Those are F-66s! They’re engaging the alien fighters!”

A voice rose on the freighter’s comm system. “Freighter 19434J, what the hell are you doing here?”

“I can’t really explain now.”

“Then get the hell out of here, freighter!”

“Yes, sir!”

Sullivan banked away from the battle between the fighters and headed toward open space. “We’re clear,” he said. “No fighters in pursuit.”

Allen grinned. “You’re the luckiest bastard I’ve ever met, Rick.”

“I hope so, but I’m going to need more than luck. The device?”

Allen nodded. “Do you see that panel on the top?”

Sullivan stood and leaned over the device. “Yes.”

“Slide that back.”

Sullivan did so and revealed what appeared to be a round, touch-sensitive screen. A ring of eight circles ran around the edge of the screen, each enclosing a strange symbol. A larger ring was in the center of the screen.

“That button in the middle will activate it,” Allen said, “but first you have to arm it.”

“These?” Sullivan asked, indicating the ring of buttons.

“Yes. We’ll call the blue glowing end of the device the top, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Here’s the pattern: top right, left, bottom, bottom left, top. But you have to repeat that pattern twice to arm it. Got it?”

“Got it,” Sullivan said.

“Then you have to hit the middle button immediately. If you wait too long, it’ll disarm itself.”

“And what will happen when it goes off?”

“Not even the aliens really know. It was always just theoretical, because setting it off would destroy hyperspace.
If
it works at all, that is,” Allen said.

Sullivan nodded. “Are you ready, Frank?”

“I’m ready. Good luck, Rick.”

“You, too.”

Sullivan sat back down and checked his instruments as he prepared to enter hyperspace.

IV: INTO THE BREACH

BROTHER PETER SAT in the tree house, listening to the sounds of screams and occasional gunfire from the village. From his vantage point, he’d seen vehicles moving out of the village and knew something was happening. He’d also seen, along the road, not just the savage animal aliens but what looked like alien soldiers, fully suited and wielding weapons.

It seemed they had finally moved out from Rome. Did that mean the city had fallen, or were they just engaging in a campaign of terror, spreading fear and death as widely as possible before the final, war-ending assault?

Peter glanced up through the treetops. Fiery debris was smoking across the sky. A space battle was raging overhead. He didn’t know how it was going, but he feared the worst.

The sound of someone tromping through the underbrush brought him out of his thoughts. He peeked over the edge of the tree house platform and saw a young boy walking aimlessly through the woods.

Peter called down to him, and the boy looked up. “Do you speak English?”

As soon as he said it, Peter realized how silly the question was. There were few places on Earth where children didn’t learn English from a very early age.

The boy nodded.

“Where are your parents?”

He shrugged.

“Okay. Come up here,” Peter said.

He threw the rope ladder down, and the boy stepped toward it, nervously glancing down at the dead alien at the base of the tree. He tried to lift his leg onto the first rung but kept losing his balance. Finally, he managed to get onto the ladder but was unable to pull himself up. “I can’t!” the boy whined.

“Okay, wait there,” Peter said.

He climbed down and offered his hand to the boy. “I’ll pull you up.”

The child reached for Peter’s hand, but the sound of leaves crunching caught their attention. One of the red alien creatures crouched ten meters away, ready to lunge.

“Hurry!” Peter yelled. “Grab my hand!”

The alien leapt toward them as the boy reached up, but Peter knew it was too late. If he didn’t do something, the thing would rip into the boy’s legs as Peter pulled him up.

Instead, Peter jumped down from the rope ladder and pulled the knife he’d found from his pocket. He felt his ankle give but ignored the pain shooting through his leg. “Climb!” he yelled to the boy.

Excited by panic, the boy quickly scaled the ladder and crawled into the tree house. Brother Peter stepped back as the alien creature hit the rope ladder where the boy had been. One of its claws got tangled in the ropes, and Peter slashed toward the thing’s face with his knife. He sliced into the side of its mouth, ripping it open several centimeters.

The alien turned its head and snapped its teeth toward Peter, missing by less than a centimeter. Peter pulled back his arm and stabbed at the mouth again. The blade of the knife sank into the alien’s mouth, but it bit down hard on Peter’s wrist as its free claw swung around and pierced Peter’s cheek.

Peter screamed in agony as the alien thrashed, its claws still embedded in his cheek and its teeth clamped down tightly against his wrist.

Peter twisted the knife in the thing’s mouth and drove it deeper. At last, the alien fell limp. Peter used his free hand to pull its claws from his cheek then pry open its jaws.

He held up his hand and saw that the alien’s teeth had sliced through to the bone. Blood was gushing from the wound.

The boy climbed down the ladder with one of the bed sheets from the tree house in his hand. He wrapped the sheet around Peter’s wrist but didn’t pull it tight enough to slow the bleeding. Peter tried to tighten it, but he was losing strength fast.

The boy used the other end of the sheet to wipe at the blood on Peter’s cheek.

“Listen,” Peter said, “I need you to get up to that tree house and stay there, okay? There’s a little bit of food and a can of soda. Stay there until someone comes to get you.”

The boy shook his head. “You need help.”

“It’s too late.” Peter looked up at the sky and saw another fireball streak across it. “What’s your name?”

“Enzo.”

Peter nodded. “Take this knife, Enzo. But stay deep inside the tree house, away from the door, okay? Only use it if you have to.”

“No, you need it.”

“It’s too late for me, Enzo. I’m going to die.”

Enzo shook his head again.

“It’s okay, though. The Lord awaits me. I can already feel his embrace. But get into the tree house, Enzo. I know you can climb the ladder. Please, let me know you’re safe before I die. Go.”

Enzo nodded and picked up the knife. He leaned down and quickly hugged Peter before climbing back up to the tree house.

“Good job, Enzo. Now pull the ladder up.”

The boy complied, and Peter smiled up at him.

“Go inside, Enzo. Go inside and stay quiet. Promise me you will.”

“I promise.” The boy disappeared inside but popped his head back out a moment later. “What’s your name?”

“My name is Peter.”

“I will pray for you, Peter.”

Brother Peter smiled. “Thank you. And pray for all of us while you’re at it. Pray for everyone.”

“I will.”

The boy disappeared from view again, and Peter closed his eyes. He could feel the sun shining on his face through the trees. He somehow hadn’t noticed it before, but the forest was alive with birdsong. The intermittent screams from the village died away, and he drifted off to the sounds of the birds, the warmth of the sun and the rustle of the wind in the leaves.

THE SOUND OF an energy weapon firing echoed down the deserted street. Jeff Ives stopped in his tracks. It sounded like it was coming from the direction of his building, where over two hundred people waited for evacuation.

Ives turned to Gail and frowned. “It looks like our recon just got cut short.”

The two broke into a run. Stopping at the corner, Ives poked his head around the side of the building. A dead alien soldier lay in the street, and in a window on the second floor of the building, he could see one of the men who was on guard duty.

“That alien’s on the other side of the street,” he said. “Why’d he shoot him? It’s just going to draw attention!”

“Maybe it spotted them,” Gail said.

At the other end of the street, a dozen more alien soldiers appeared.

“Well, they know there are people in there now,” Ives said. He ducked his head back. “We wait here. Once they’ve engaged our men in the building, we’ll attack their flank.”

Gail nodded and checked her weapon. “I wish we could figure out how many charges these alien weapons have. We could be empty and not even know it.”

Ives tapped a glowing blue dome on the top of his gun, just below the sight. “I think this light means we still have something left. I’ve noticed some of them are dimmer than others.”

Energy weapons began discharging. Ives looked back around the corner. The aliens had pressed themselves against the side of the building, forcing the men firing from the windows to lean out to get a shot at them. Two more men were in the entryway, waiting to repel the aliens’ attack.

One of the men at the windows exchanged fire with the aliens. He struck an alien in the shoulder, severing the arm, but another alien got off a clean shot. The man screamed as the energy blast sheared away half his face. He fell forward and dropped from the window, landing in a heap on the sidewalk. The alien soldiers used the distraction to rush the doorway of the building.

“Now!” Ives said.

He and Gail moved forward as the aliens piled into the building. They had killed the men guarding it and blown away the locking mechanism on the door. Screams and shots escaped from the doorway. Ives reached the building and pressed himself against the side of it, Gail behind him.

He swung around into the alcove of the doorway and fired at an alien that was approaching the stairwell. It fell, but another moved into Ives’s line of sight, its weapon at the ready. Ives fell back as a beam of energy passed by him.

As soon as it was clear, he dropped forward onto the floor, raising his gun as he did so. Before the alien could adjust its aim, Ives had fired. The shot struck the alien in the neck, sending the head flopping back as the body fell.

Behind him, Gail stepped through into the lobby of the building. The two of them quickly cleared it.

“The rest must have gone up the stairs,” Gail said.

Ives nodded. The sound of more shots reached them. “They’ve engaged the men on the second floor.” he said.

Ives took point as they climbed the stairs. One alien soldier was on the landing to the second floor, waiting for them. Ives ducked back just in time to avoid being hit.

“We’re pinned,” he said. “I can’t get a shot at him.”

An explosion rocked the building. Taking a chance, Ives took the rest of the stairs two at a time, hoping the blast had momentarily distracted the alien soldier. Its gun was still aimed in his direction, but its head was turned.

He knew he didn’t have time to raise his weapon and fire, so Ives barreled into the alien, catching it under the chin with his gun. The alien’s head snapped back and hit the wall of the stairwell, but it seemed uninjured. The alien brought its knee up into Ives’s stomach, doubling him over. As he went down, he heard an energy discharge, and heat seared across his back. The alien in front of him fell to the side. Ives looked back and nodded at Gail as she lowered her weapon.