Chapter 17
CROSSFIRE
Gabriel swore when he saw the scene.
Scott was hovering over the steering wheel, one eye closed against the pain from the concussion.
The National Guard Unit was backed up against the river.
They had nowhere to go, and a horde of FUDs and Handlers were pushing in on them.
Behind the line of trucks, the soldiers were using as a makeshift barricade, a group of ragged-looking civilians were hunkered down.
Hands over their heads, covered in debris and blood.
It was going to be a slaughter.
Priority needed to be getting the heat off the Guard Unit so they could safely evacuate the civilians.
“Phin, need you to lay down some serious cover fire. We need those big bastards to look at us.”
Phin pocketed some of the extra magazines Scott gave them, tossing a couple to Gabriel. “Really saved us with the extra ammo. Where did you get it?” he called forward.
Scott scowled as he flicked on the lights and sirens, accelerating into the street. “Pulled it off my dead squadmates.”
Phin grimaced. “Bet you’re really fun at parties,” he mumbled just before he broke the back window, clearing the glass out and laying his rifle against the window, sighting it.
The moment they screeched onto the street, he began firing.
Between the gun and the buffeting wind from the open window, it was impossible to hear anything.
The aliens immediately turned to assess the new threat. One Handler seemed to stumble back as Phin’s rounds struck its head and face area. A drone whizzed by just as a FUD turned to pounce. It barely missed as Scott swerved, jumping up onto the curb with two wheels.
Gabriel couldn’t see out the back of the ambulance, but he could hear Phin’s swearing. Tommy was just behind him, offering him fresh magazines from the pile at his feet. It was getting smaller by the second. They couldn’t keep wasting ammo like this.
The aliens advanced toward the National Guard, the civilians had slowed but not stopped. Several soldiers were running backwards, helping the civilians get into a minivan with a flat tire. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
An explosion sent the ambulance skidding sideways. Gabriel gagged on the smell of burning rubber.
“We’re on fire!” Tommy shouted from the back, bracing himself on the stretcher.
Gabriel looked up just in time to see a Handler level it’s twin guns at them. “We’ve got bigger problems! Scott!”
The National Guardsman snarled, slamming on the brakes as he cut the wheel. It was a near miss, the back bumper of the ambulance shuddering as it spun into a building.
Phin and Tommy were thrown to the ground. The smell of burning rubber intensified, and when Gabriel looked back, he saw the back door of the ambulance being eaten away by the incendiary round. It looked like napalm as the metal dissolved under the extreme heat.
With a grunt of pain, Phin pushed himself up.
Grabbing onto the bars fastened to the ceiling, he kicked at the back door.
The melted hinges gave, and the door dropped to the street.
Phin dropped to his knees, panting. Blood was pooling on the textured floor of the ambulance.
Tommy was beside him, yanking at his leg to get a visual of the wound.
Phin tried to protest, but his face was pale, and he gasped when Tommy touched something.
“It’s his knee,” Tommy said grimly.
“How bad?” Gabriel shouted back, moving so he could glance in the rearview mirrors. For the moment, the aliens seemed to have deemed them incapacitated and were back to advancing on the barking .50 cal at the end of the street.
Tommy’s hands were on Phin’s thigh, trying to get a look under all the blood. “I-I don’t know. I’m not Blake—”
“Thank god for that,” Phin groaned, falling back against the cabinets. “Gabriel’d kill me if you were.”
Phin’s lame joke seemed to shake Tommy out of his insecurity. “He’s taken some shrapnel to the knee and inner thigh. I can’t tell how bad, but it’s not good.”
Gabriel was about to order them to find some cover, but it was Scott who spoke, “Get out.”
Tommy glanced up at him. Their eyes met in the rearview mirror. Gabriel nodded. “Get to some cover.”
Reloading his gun, he waited until Tommy had stuffed his pants with supplies before getting Phin out the back. “Maybe if we can—”
“I said get out,” Scott’s voice was low, barely more than a scratchy growl. He was staring out of the cracked windshield. “I’m going to create a distraction. Punch a hole through their line.”
“Scott, that’s a—”
“I said get out.” Scott turned to him. His blood was bright red against the white of his bandage. His eyes were wide and black. Bright with something Gabriel recognized. It made him recoil.
“If you think I’m going to let you—”
Scott pulled out his handgun, leveling it at Gabriel’s face. His mouth was set in a grim line. “I won’t be the lone survivor. Get out of this ambulance.”
Gabriel stared down the barrel of the M9.
It was like time froze, and all he could think was not again.
He couldn’t let another young soldier die because he wasn’t enough.
He wanted to grab the gun, twist it from Scott’s hand.
He could. Scott was hardly in peak form.
It wouldn’t take much to disarm him. Come up with a new plan.
But when he looked up from the gun to Scott’s eyes, he knew. It wouldn’t matter if he took this gun. There would be another.
Scott thumbed off the safety. “I wasn’t asking, Commander.”
Hands tightening around the stock of his gun, Gabriel swallowed back the selfish desire to protect himself. To prevent another set of hollow eyes from following him around. The weight of another life settling on his shoulders.
He stepped out of the ambulance and before he could even slam the door, it took off.
Lights and sirens screaming, Scott drove straight at the aliens. It didn’t take long for the first FUD to set its sights on it. The ambulance jarred onto two wheels as the quadruped launched onto the back. It fishtailed, but didn’t brake, speeding right between two Handlers.
Scott skidded through another FUD, flipping the ambulance before a perfect strike from a Handler hit the gas tank. The ambulance exploded, sending metal and bits of tire in every direction.
The explosion took out two FUDs and one Handler.
The National Guard Unit was able to retreat in the ensuing confusion.
Even the falling electrical balls seemed to have stopped, and for a moment, there was the hush of quiet that seemed to fall after every battle—a false quiet, when the world wasn’t silent, but nothing could penetrate the ringing in your ears and the thrum of adrenaline pumping in your veins.
The erratic, audible thumping of a heart against a plate carrier.
Even the aliens had stopped firing. They were still, as if waiting for something. The FUDs were still; heads cocked like a dog listening to a whistle only they could hear. Were they waiting for orders? That didn’t make sense. The drones seemed to be giving the orders and—
He could hear it now. It wasn’t orders they were listening to.
Gabriel stiffened. His hands clenched on his gun, and he turned to run. He saw Tommy and Phin hiding behind a tangled pile of shopping carts that looked like they’d been welded to a light post. He dove behind them.
Tommy looked up from where he’d been bandaging Phin’s leg. “Where’s—”
Gabriel wasn’t listening. Peering over their cover. If he held his breath, he could hear it.
Thundering. But not from the electrical ordinance. Not even from the sky. From the other side of the street. The thundering of hundreds of feet.
He saw the first coming out of an alley.
It was a quadruped, but smaller than a FUD.
Its curved muscular back gave it a hunched, ungainly gait.
The head of the creature was angular and flat, proportionally small to the rest of the creature.
Large eyes took up most of its face, with a narrow nose crest and a bifurcated jaw with sharp hooks that split to reveal rows and rows of impenetrable razor-sharp teeth.
The thing crept onto the street, its eyes twisting like a chameleon as it took in the scene.
The strangely delicate pointed ears atop its ugly head twitched, long guard hairs on the points sticking straight up.
Each one of its four limbs ended with four long toes capped with claws that solidly strafed the concrete.
Four more emerged from the alley. All as ugly and horrifying as the first.
Behind him, Tommy whined.
Gabriel tried to make sense of the situation, but sweat was dripping into his eyes, and his stomach was in knots.
More of them? No. He quickly wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand.
No, these things were different. The FUDs, Handlers, and drones were more metallic-looking.
Like shitty robots off a B movie. These things were flesh and blood.
He wasn’t sure which one he hated more.
The first creature ducked its head once and then charged. Gabriel was ready to hit the deck, but the things weren’t charging at him—they were running for the aliens.
The second aliens, he thought, just as the first biologic leapt to snatch a buzzing drone right out of the air like a dog with a ball. The second alien landed, snapping down on the drone with a sickening crunch. Electricity crackled as bits of alien tech dribbled from between the thing’s teeth.
And then they were fighting.
Handler’s weapons were going wide, shooting faster than they could aim. FUDs were twittering and screeching, meeting the biologics head-on with a gagging sound of rending flesh and cracking bones.
Gabriel couldn’t look away. It was easy to pick the two species apart.
The FUDs and Handlers were matte black, but the biologics were cream colored with thick patches of dark brown that looked almost like spots.
But no. Spots didn’t move. These markings were constantly slithering over their thin skin in no discernible pattern.
But the truly strange thing was that the Handlers were hitting them and the biologics didn’t stop. After the initial slam of ordinance, the immolation aspect seemed to fizzle slowly. It clearly burned, but slower than the things around them.
He didn’t dare fire and draw attention to themselves. They were outgunned and pinned, hiding behind some flimsy shopping carts with no exit, while two advanced alien species went head to head less than fifty feet in front of him.
Gabriel swallowed thickly, shoving his gloved hand into his pocket. His hands closed around the crochet hook.
God, I need a drink.