Alien Alliance (32 page)

As the awful day wore on, he felt Anna
become stiff and cold. He could not accept it but neither could he
bear to see her like that. Finally, he had got up and staggered
away from her. His thirst was terrible and he could barely see; the
daylight was blinding. He was having difficulty walking, his
balance very bad. He drank from a puddle in the garden. He was both
nauseous and more thirsty than he had ever been in his life. The
thirst won. He kept the water down. He noticed others alive in a
building and he joined them. The long day passed, and then the long
night. At least he eventually felt better. The headache was much
reduced. His eyesight was back to normal and he was hungry. But
there was nothing safe to eat. The goop stuff turned out to be
poisoned as was revealed when several Aliens tried it and died. It
was not a nice death. They writhed in agony. It was fast though and
that was lucky. A quick warning to others.

The next morning he refused to join the
group of Terrans who tried to escape. It was a waste of time. Why
wouldn’t the idiots listen to all the Aliens around them who knew
better? He saw Li and Stella but ignored them. He couldn’t bear to
see Donny again and then lose him. It would be nicer to die
together but he instinctively knew that Donny would not sit and
calmly watch death coming. He was not sure why he knew that. He
knew so little about his strange, emotional, gentle son. He had
never understood him. His father always said he was just like
Steve’s mother but Steve had never understood his mother either.
The day drifted on.

He heard the sound of aircraft. Looking out
the window, he saw funny looking stubby aircraft landing near the
buildings. Some Aliens disembarked. They had four legs and
apparently two arms as they were carrying some large things a
little like a gas sprayer (he presumed), with a tank like thing on
their backs. The main problem was that they were wearing what
looked like Hazmat suits.

Steve watched as they walked confidently
into the room he was in. There were murmurs and comments but he
didn’t have a Translator on. He watched indifferently as several
Aliens walked up and out the door past them accompanied by angry
comments from the Aliens left behind. Fifth columnists, he assumed.
The Aliens in the Hazmat suits lifted up some nozzle like things
and sprayed the room with gas. A large Alien beside Steve toppled
over him and fell through the window knocking Steve through
also.

Steve awoke with a splitting headache so bad
he could scarcely think. The Alien who had knocked him through the
window was dead. The pain was so bad it felt like his head was
being crushed. He lifted his head up only realising what a mistake
that was as everything went black and the pain cut like a knife
through his skull. He collapsed again and lost consciousness. As he
lay there, the Hazmat suited Aliens did a walk around, checking
that all were dead. They passed him by.

Some considerable time later, he woke again,
the headache not as bad. At least he could think but his vision was
gone. He lay among the dead, wishing he was one of them. Mindful of
the last time, he moved very slowly but had to get up, forced up by
two types of hydraulic pressure; the need to pee and a raging
thirst. Very gradually, he eased himself up the wall until he was
vertical. Moving slowly he peed while leaning on the wall. That
relieved one problem. His vision still seemed dark but gradually he
realised that it wasn’t his eyesight, it was night time. He stayed
still, leaning against the wall until his head cleared a little.
His head and shoulders were sticky with blood. He felt nauseous and
dizzy. He tried to find a puddle but it was hopeless in the dark.
It hurt to think. He did know where the sea was. He could hear
it.

He didn’t want to move but thirst drove him
and he very slowly headed down to the sea. It took a long time to
get there, with frequent stops. Finally he reached the ocean and
virtually fell in. He started to drink. That part was bliss. He
drank slowly, his head gradually clearing a little more as the
minutes went by but the terrible headache remained. He lay in the
water and let the waves wash the blood off his clothes and out of
his hair. Eventually, he noticed he was shivering. He tried to get
up but the task was beyond him. The tide was coming in. He wasn’t
really worried but there was a rock nearby so he made the effort to
drag his head and chest onto it. It was more comfortable than
drowning. He slept.

Some time later something nudged him awake.
Carefully he turned his head. It was a Priskya. He ignored it. He
heard it talking but in its own language. It kept pushing at him.
Then there was another one. They were trying to drag him into the
water pulling at his clothing with their teeth. He initially
resisted but then decided not to bother. If they wanted to drown
him or eat him that was OK with him. At least it would be over.
They pulled him into the water and he automatically started to
swim. They kept guiding him out to sea. Fairly soon, he grew tired
but when he would have gone under one got underneath him and kept
lifting him up. Finally, he realised they were trying to tow him.
He got a grip on the dorsal fin of one of them and it started to
tow him out to sea at an increasing speed like he had seen them tow
children. He relaxed and let it.

It was smooth travelling as the fish kept
its head under the surface, swimming like a shark. He rested his
sore head on the back of the Priskya, slipping in and out of
consciousness. Several times he let go and sank but one of the
Priskya would quickly lift him up again and keep at him until he
held on again. It was less trouble just to go with them. After some
time had passed he thought he was hallucinating; he could hear
human voices. It also seemed to be getting light.

“One is injured, one is sick,” he heard a
Priskya say as he bumped into something. Then someone was in the
water with him putting a rope around him. He was lifted up the side
of a ship. He sprawled onto the deck and bumped his head, knocking
himself out.

When he awoke again he was in the cabin, dry
and in clean clothes. Dr. Black was with him. His head was
bandaged. Someone came over with a container. It was Stella. Steve
wondered how she had got here. A blur came from behind her and
Donny burrowed into him, crying.

“He’s been here all the time. He just went
out to eat,” Stella was crying too. But Steve just hugged Donny and
went to sleep again.

When Az and Kaz awoke and promptly got
together next morning, they spent the morning trying to work out
who was with them on the biggest boat, what their relationships to
each other were and how they could best help. As they got to know
and talk to the Terrans, a suspicion grew. Seeking out and
conversing with Mahmoud, they found out that Li and Stella were not
married, Stella was helping her mother care for Donny’s father
Steve who had arrived last night just before they had returned from
the city. Li was still asleep. They wanted to talk to Mathew but he
wasn’t there.

When Li finally awoke and went to join Kelly
and Stella, she found out that Steve had been towed in that morning
by some Priskya. He was injured and unwell but alive. Kelly said
she thought his main injury was emotional shock. He seemed
disconnected from reality. Kelly spoke to Donny about it but he
didn’t seem to be surprised.

“Dad and Mum were very close. He did his
study and she organized the rest of his life. I’ll bet he doesn’t
know how to live without her. I was unplanned and not exactly
wanted. Then to make matters worse I was so different to them. My
granddad mostly brought me up. He loved me. He said I was like my
grandma. I’ll look after Dad.”

Kelly was rather taken aback by Donny’s
matter of fact attitude. His acceptance of being unwanted by his
parents. Donny was true to his word and took over as much of his
father’s care as he could, even to feeding him.

The Priskya kept them informed as to the
activities in the city which had given Mathew an idea. He had some
long talks with the Priskya and came back looking very
satisfied.

To everyone’s surprise, except Kaz and Az,
by that evening, the Priskya reported that the city was abandoned.
The city was much smaller than the big northern cities which had
been developed first. The bodies were gone and all signs of the
invaders also. The mess had been cleaned up. Az and Kaz at once
declared they wanted to go back to the city. They wanted a Cleaner
and a hot meal. Donny had told them Helkmid thought he could get
the power back on. They would settle for just sleep under cover and
on something that didn’t move.

A few were also keen to go back so after the
inevitable discussion, two boat loads went back. To their delight,
they found that Helkmid had already got the power back on. Alan was
waiting for them in the mess. He was trying to sort out a meal. Not
a good cook at the best of times, he didn’t know what to cook nor
how. He was hugely relieved to see Az and Kaz. It was so nice to
hand over to people who could read the packets. Soon, a hot meal
was cooking. Later that evening, most of the others straggled in
including Jolene, Nanelle, the Nedri family and the de Jonge
family. They, like the others, just wanted the Cleaners. Az and Kaz
showed everyone how to use them and told them to manoeuvre their
bed/bags into them. Cloaks were already being used as the local
blankets. The bigger ones made handy sleeping bags; huge ones.
Finally, everyone was clean and settled except for the ones still
out in Boat City.

The next morning, the rest of Boat City came
in, satisfied it was safe. Mathew and Sarah told everyone there
would be a meeting in the ‘mess hall’ (which is what they
christened the biggest restaurant), after lunch. According to the
Cats, the Keulfyd had used the restaurant for the same purpose.

Once everyone was fed, Sarah stood up. “We
need to decide what to do. Our future looks pretty grim unless we
do something. One alternative is to take to the sea and make like a
fish. That won’t last though. We can’t sleep in water. Kaz and Az
say that the Keulfyd won’t expect us to fight back. They also say
the Keulfyd now have gone and will not be back until all the cities
have been cleared of the dead. We have some time to plan and
decide. They estimate about 20 days. I’ll hand over to Mathew now.
I agree with him. I think we should fight.”

Mathew stood up, “The most important
decision, we have already made. We have decided to survive. There
is only one way to do that. We can’t hide indefinitely from the
scanners. According to Az and Kaz, we have three to four weeks to
come up with some kind of plan to fight back. There is a fairly
standard strategy for doing that. It was sorted out in the sixth
century by a man called Sun Tzu.

We need a Plan, a method to implement it,
strategy, tactics, and the means to carry them out. We need all the
Intel we can get on the Keulfyd. We need to know their strengths
and their weaknesses, their tactics and weaponry. We need to know
how they think and how they fight. We need to figure out how to be
mobile or fight when the enemy comes to us. We need to plan but
have backup plans as well. We also need to be flexible enough to
change plans in a hurry. We need to use this planet and its
resources. To do so, we need to know what these resources are. Most
important is Intel and a spy network. I have written this down. I
want people to come and look this over, then pick the part they
think they can help solve. We have a huge variety of people, with
different training, professions and ways of looking at things.

For starters, we have Kaz, Az and the
beginnings of a very good and highly motivated planet wide spy
network. This spy network is invisible to the Keulfyd.” He grinned,
looking at the answering grins of some and the bafflement of
others.

“You kids are as important as the adults. No
one is to dismiss an idea no matter how silly you think it sounds.
Many inventors have had to continue to work despite these types of
attitudes. We need brainstormers. Then we need others to work on
these ideas to make them doable. We need weapons of any
description, any way we can win and live. Think outside the square.
We have taken the first two steps; we have declared we will SURVIVE
and we will FIGHT. These Keulfyd have no right to take our lives!
We will do what it takes to live!

There were cheers. Everyone was talking at
once. Kaz and Az looked at each other. Kaz muttered, “These Terrans
are crazy; brave, but crazy. The task is impossible. There are in
excess of 3000 troops, probably more as some mercenaries would have
been landed with the slave troopships. Most of the pilots will be
fighters. The planes are armed, the shuttles are armed. The
spaceships are armed and can simply blast the cities from space.
This is impossible. They have no idea what they are facing. It is
just not possible. These Terrans do not listen and do not
understand.” Az nodded in agreement.

Kaz and Az were wrong. Mathew had a fair
idea what the odds were. So did a lot of the other adults. But the
Terrans knew something else. They knew what guerrillas could
accomplish. Most knew the havoc a few determined kamikazes or
terrorists could inflict. Mathew was keeping a lot of knowledge
hidden. He had had a long talk with Steve. Steve didn’t want to
live. But he did want revenge on those who had killed his Anna. He
had offered to do anything to get even. When Mathew asked would he
be a human bomb, he agreed. Mathew knew if he asked, he would get
other volunteers. He knew his delivery system but lacked the
weapons. He knew the proportions to make gunpowder but where could
he find the ingredients? He knew Kaz and Az would be able to make
or find the parts for detonators and timers. He needed weapons, the
fighters, he had. Almost all of the adults he had asked had agreed
they would rather die fighting rather than die running. If they did
nothing else, thought Mathew, they would make the Keulfyd pay
dearly for their deaths.