V - The Original Miniseries (27 page)

As she walked along, she saw two familiar figures just ahead-people she'd never expected to see again. Quickening her pace, she smiled and waved. "Stanley! Lynn! You're back!"

 

Stanley and Lynn Bernstein were standing in their backyard, out near the pool house. They both looked up at Ruby's hail. "Ruby!"

 

Leaving her cart at the corner of the driveway, Ruby hastened toward them. "I'm so glad to see you! I thought maybe you wouldn't be coming back!"

Stanley's arm was bandaged from the elbow down-he held it stiffly, as though the slightest jar would bring agony. Lynn appeared uninjured, but her blue eyes looked changed-as though they'd beheld the worst she could have imagined, and was only now beginning to realize it hadn't destroyed her. She reached out to embrace the older woman, her arms shaking. "Ruby, it's so good to be back!"

"Where's Abraham?"

The Bernsteins looked at each other. "We never saw him," Stanley said dully. "When we got home, we saw Daniel." He said the name as if it hurt him. "He hadn't seen him either. He promised to ask his leader, Brian, where Father is, but-" He swallowed. "I'm afraid it's better not to know."

Lynn put her face in her hands, shaking. "Daniel said he ... was sorry ... that we'd been-" "Take it easy, Lynn," Stanley said, putting his good arm around his wife.

"I understand," said Ruby clearly. "Please, Stanley, take care of yourself. Lynn, I'll see you later. Try to get some rest." She patted the younger woman on her bowed shoulder, then walked quickly away.

She refused to think. Her legs moved mechanically, onetwo, one-two, as she reclaimed her shopping cart and followed the path she and her friend had walked so many times. At the first corner, one of their vehicles was parked, hatch open, next to two police cars.

Ruby stopped. Halfway down the side block, several shock troopers, accompanied by two policemen, were searching some tough-looking youths in front of Visitor posters festooned with the "V" symbol. Cans of red spray paint bore mute witness to the kids' crime. Quickly, Ruby took one of the Molotov cocktails out of its concealment in her shopping cart, then pulled her Zippo lighter out of her pocket. Holding the gasoline-filled bottle concealed beneath her huge purse, she lit the rag fuse as she passed the open hatch. Nobody was watching-the troopers were concentrating on the kids.

With a quick, sure gesture, Ruby tossed the cocktail into the open shuttle. "This one's for Abraham," she muttered, giving a defiant glance at the Visitors' backs. Then she trotted on, the cart bumping.

The first, small explosion was joined a second later by a much bigger one. Ruby cast a quick, satisfied glance back to see the shuttle in flames; one of the police cars had also caught. The Visitors and cops were staring at the flames; the kids were only flying, distant figures. She smiled tautly, before she noticed that one of the policemen was watching her over his shoulder.

Ruby's back stiffened-then she saw his grin, quickly stifled, and the "V" sign he made behind his back for her benefit.

 

Ruby Engels walked on down the street, her eyes scanning for another target.
19

AS THE DELIVERY TRUCK LURCHED AROUND A CORNER, ELIAS'S hands slipped on the steering wheel. "Sorry 'bout that," he said, wiping first his right, then his left palm on the thigh of his jeans. "Hands are sweaty." The sound of another explosion echoed in the distance. "You scared too?" He checked the rearview mirror; the garbage truck was still back there.

Juliet, sitting beside him, looked tensely through the window at the hulk of a burning police car. "Yeah. I just hope nobody gets hurt. I would hate to lose one of us."

Robert Maxwell, sitting beside Juliet on the swaying seat of the fast-moving truck, was thinking fast. He stole a quick look at his watch, which showed one forty-seven. Two hours to go. I'll have to break free during the attack and steal some transportation so I can get Kathy and the girls out. He thought of the people in the mountain camp, imagined Juliet's face if she knew how he was betraying them, then resolutely pushed such thoughts out of his mind. Robin. Think of Robin, up there in that damn hulking ship ...

The truck turned another corner. Directly ahead of them was a huge concrete and brick building, enclosed within a twelve-foot chain-link fence. Two shock troopers stood guard at the gate. Inside the fence they could see army vehicles parked.

"There. There's the loading dock, Elias." Juliet pointed. "I see it. Hang on!" The truck accelerated toward the gate. With a huge lurch it struck the chain-link and burst through.

 

"Look out for the two on the roof!" Juliet shouted. They slewed around, bouncing off a parked troop carrier, then backed up to the loading dock.

The garbage truck trundled in through the wreckage of the gate and its back door began to open as the pulsing whine of Visitor weapons filled the parking lot. Armed resistance fighters jumped out and began firing at the Visitors. Several fighters produced large framed mirrors, using them to flash the bright sunlight in the faces of the roof guards.

Juliet jumped out of the delivery truck and ran around to the back, her hip stabbing with pain-she barely felt it. "Open it up! Let's get it loaded! Fast!"

The rear door of the truck opened and more resistance fighters tumbled out onto the loading dock. They raced inside the armory with Juliet, the sounds of the battle outside following them. Elias came up beside Juliet as she grabbed several guns. "Whoo! Lookit all this hardware!"

"No time to pick and choose," she snapped. "Load 'em on." Quickly they formed a chain, passing weapons from hand to hand into the truck. Elias and Brad raced around, handing machine guns, a bazooka and ammunition, then a rocket launcher and rockets to the chain. Juliet looked up at a shout to see one fighter dragged in by another, then Robert, who half-carried a moaning woman. "Oh, no!" She hastened over to the wounded. "We've got to get them into the truck!"

Robert's eyes were wild, his mouth anguished. "I've got to get out of here, warn the mountain camp! They're going to be raided this afternoon!"

 

"What?!" "Robin is a prisoner-I was only trying to protect her! But there are too many lives at stake-I can't keep quiet and let them be taken!"

Without waiting for a response, he turned and dashed out of the armory, located a parked jeep, scanned to see if the keys were in the ignition, then climbed in. Juliet hesitated, but there was nothing she could do. Robert started the jeep, gunned the motor, and, crouching low over the wheel, roared away.

"Elias!" Juliet called. "Help me get these people into the truck!"

As they carried the wounded man and woman out, she shouted to the other rebels: "The truck's getting full-pass the word. Get ready to haul it out of here! We've got to head straight for the mountain, camp-they're going to be raided!"

The next few minutes passed in a blur, a hideous one. Several more wounded were slung hurriedly into the truck, and Juliet saw that at least one of them wouldn't make it as far as the mountain camp. Elias and Brad oversaw the retreat, while Juliet remained in the rear of the delivery truck with the wounded.

When she peered out to see how the courtyard fighting was going, Juliet saw many red-clad bodies. All of the alien vehicles were in flames. Even as she watched, the fire spread toward the munitions storage. "Elias!" she shrieked. "Get us out of here!"

Brad leaped into the rear of the truck just as the engine rumbled to life. "Did everyone else make it into the trash truck?" Juliet asked.

 

"Yeah." Brad looked around at the jumbled stacks of weapons. "We did okay, looks like."

"If you can call five wounded, one probably critically, okay then you're right. Come over here." When he reached her side, she continued, "Okay, hold this rag here, until the bleeding stops. How much first aid did they give you as a cop?"

"I've delivered a baby," he said. "But mostly it was just basic wait-for-the-ambulance stuff." "That's better than most people. At least you don't upchuck at the sight of blood." "What were you yelling about the mountain camp?"

"Robert got away just after telling me that the Visitors captured his daughter, Robin, and forced him to give the location of the mountain camp. They're going to raid it. We've got to get our equipment out of there!"

"Oh, shit! That sonofabitch!"

"Brad, are you crazy? What do you expect the poor guy to do, just throw away his own daughter's life? I just hope that somehow we can manage to get her back. Maybe this `Martin' Donovan spoke of can help."

"Damn. Somebody better."

By the time the truck left the city behind, they had done all they could for the wounded. Juliet sat on the swaying floor, her back against a pile of army rifles, Lenore's head in her lap. Her hand held the young black woman's, partly for comfort, partly to check her thready, erratic pulse. Brad looked over at them. "She gonna make it?"

Juliet looked at him soberly and shook her head from side to side. She didn't want to speak aloud because it was barely possible that Lenore could still hear, even though she seemed to be unconscious. Hearing, she knew, was one of the last senses to go.

"We must be nearly there by now," Brad said, checking his watch. Juliet nodded, looking down at Lenore. The pulse beneath her fingers fluttered, throbbed, fluttered as the woman twitched and gasped. Then it stopped.

"She's gone," Juliet said. She noticed that her hip ached terribly and that she was crying. Neither fact seemed very important.

Brad looked closely at her face in the dimness of the wan overhead light, then scuttled across the floor. "Hey, Julie. Hey ..." Awkwardly he put his arm around her. Juliet leaned against him for a long time.

The truck banked into a sharp turn. Lenore slid bonelessly out of Juliet's lap. "That's the turn onto the mountain road," Juliet said. They could feel the alteration in the truck's engine now as it strained to take the incline. "Just a little way to go now. What time is it, Brad?"
She could see the tiny glow of his watch. "Two-fifty."

"You mean it only took a half-hour in the armory?" "Less," Brad said. "It's weird, isn't it? We used to notice that in Nam. We'd be in a raid, or pinned down somewhere under fire, and time would get real short-or sometimes real long."

 

Juliet stiffened. "I hear shots!"

A moment later, the pulse of Visitor weapons was plainly audible, as well as screams. "They're attacking the camp!" Juliet jumped up and pounded on the wall separating the truck from the cab. "Hurry up, Elias!"

"He can't hear you, Julie!" Brad said. They braced themselves against the rear door, waiting, holding guns ready to toss out to the fighters.

The truck's brakes squealed, then it jolted to a halt. Immediately Brad pulled the rear door open. "Here! Guns!" Pulses from the Visitor weapons resounded, and as Juliet watched, a squad vehicle swooped down to strafe the center of the camp. Blue fire blazed from its weapons, exploding on impact with the ground, the tents, the people. Juliet handed out arms, hardly daring to watch. She felt lightheaded with horror.

Brad and Elias dragged the bazooka out of the truck and hastily set it up. Juliet grabbed the nearest gun and clumsily crawled out of the truck, grabbing the arm of a man she recognized as Terry. "There are wounded in the truck with the guns! Get some people and get them both out! If they shoot the gas tank, they're dead and we're unarmed!"

"Right!" he shouted, turning away. Juliet stayed still for a moment, then heard one of the craft coming in again.

"Get him, Brad!" Elias yelled, and the ex-cop fired the bazooka at the craft sweeping at them headon. A brilliant burst of light impacted against the Visitor craft, which spun away, out of control, arcing beyond the trees. A second later they heard the explosion, saw the ball of greasy orange flame reach greedily for the sky.

Juliet gave a wordless yell of encouragement at the two, who hurriedly reloaded the bazooka. One of the other craftthey moved so fast it was hard to tell how many there werebore down on the camp. It fired a burst just as a brown-haired woman dashed from a burning tent. She crumpled with a shriek of pain. A boy of about thirteen raced out behind her. He wasn't strong enough to lift her. "Help!" he shouted, but none of the panicking figures seemed to hear. Juliet grabbed a weapon and started across the campground toward him. "I can't lift her!" he yelled.

Juliet's hip stabbed as she moved, and it seemed to take an eternity for her to reach the boy. She took the woman's arm in her right hand and, together with the boy, began to drag her toward the cinderblock building housing the scientific equipment. Ahead of her, she saw another group setting up the rocket launcher.

Hurry ... hurryhurry ... Faster! Juliet's mind screamed. Dimly, from the stabbing pains in her hip, she realized she was running. But her movements felt thick, gluey, as though she were trapped in an eternal nightmare. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the largest of the Visitor craft diving directly at them. Dropping the woman's arm, she turned, the weapon she'd grabbed in her hand.

It was a .45 automatic. She recognized it from Brad's lessons. Her mind screamed that it was crazy-a handgun against an aircraft-but, possessed by the unreality that was surrounding her, Juliet took the stance Brad had shown her, the gun braced carefully in both hands, aiming. It was the first time she'd ever fired at anything but a straw target.

The gun bucked in her hand as she squeezed off several rounds. Would the bullets even penetrate the skin of the craft? It swooped by, its weapons firing, and she recognized one of the occupants.

Diana. That dark, beautiful countenance had been on too many magazine covers for her to be mistaken. Juliet's finger squeezed the trigger again, and this time she saw the spark of impact on the alien craft.

The squad vehicle sailed by, unharmed. Elias and Brad fired the bazooka at it, but missed. Juliet turned to grab the fallen woman's arm again. "Come on!" she screamed at the boy.

She heard the craft zooming in again for another strafing pass, and knew, with a terrible certainty, that this time the pilot had their range-he wouldn't miss. She waved frantically at the boy. "Get out of here! I'll get her!"

He stubbornly shook his head. They began dragging the fallen woman again. Juliet fixed her eyes on the building facing them, refusing to look elsewhere. She couldn't stop her ears, though, and she could hear the pulsing whine of the Visitor weapon coming closer ... closer ...