Waiting (21 page)

Staples kicked
her off him. 'Dead,'

'I miss her
already,' said Willis, holding his injured shoulder.

Staples stood
on the seat and dared to look outside. Kane's ship had crashed into
the top of the Base, and he wondered how anyone had survived. He
saw pools of blood next to Kane's bootprints.

'She was dying.
She wanted to take us with her.'

Willis said,
'Bitch. Any ships around?'

'Nothing. They
must have returned to headquarters after Kane's ship went down.
Come on. We need to get that wound looked at.'

Staples helped
Willis out of what was left of the turret and down the steps to the
sickbay.

Chapter 65

Captain Jacobs
said, 'I've just had a very interesting conversation with General
Gunther. Finally got the radio going again. But I gather you
already know about that.'

Sam Clifton
locked the door and said, 'Keep your voice down. Gunther said he
thought somebody on the ship is in on whatever the aliens are up
to. For all I knew that somebody could be you.'

'May I remind
you that I'm still the captain. I am not in with these aliens.'

'Oh. That's ok
then. I'll just take your word for that shall I?'

'Point taken.
I'm no more able to establish my innocence than you are. Do you
suspect anyone?'

'I've always
thought Friar a bit sly. Polowski only puts up with him because he
has to. Rumour has it Friar got up to some dodgy stuff before
joining the mission. He'd be top of my list.'

Jacobs said,
'We were rescued by Friar. He could have just left us out there to
die had he wanted to. That rather lets him off the hook in my
book.'

'Possibly.
Until I know for sure, I'm trusting nobody.'

'Probably wise.
Gunther also said these aliens could be already on Spero just
waiting for us.'

Clifton said,
'If they are, we could have had a narrow escape. As long as we are
out here in space we should be safe then.'

'Hopefully. As
soon as the storm clears enough we will scan the planet from here.
It is quite possible they have their ship hidden somewhere or even
a colony on Spero but if so, we should be able to locate them using
the infrared scanners. There is no need for us to blindly land
blind the way we did last time.'

'I agree,' said
Clifton. 'It's a good job Gunther managed to warn us. Now, the
question is, do we keep a lid on this?'

Jacobs said,
'For now. You and I need to consider all this information. If you
spot anyone behaving unusually, let me know before you challenge
them.'

'Right,' said
Clifton unlocking the door. 'In the meantime, we'll both give it
some thought as to what we do with this situation.'

Chapter 66

'Nothing too
serious,' said Bridget.

'Hurts like
hell,' moaned Willis. 'I'm a humble technician. I hardly ever get
shot.'

'Stop being a
baby.' Bridget treated the wound and gave Willis something for the
pain. 'Are you sure all the ships have gone?'

Staples said,
'I had limited vision from the turret and I didn't stick my head
out long enough to get it shot off. I would have noticed something
as large as a ship I think.'

Gunther and
Salamandra walked into the sickbay, neither smiling.

'All that
shooting from the ships destroyed the radar and infrared sensors,'
said Gunther. 'No telling what's still lurking out there.'

'Something will
be,' said Salamandra. 'Plenty of hiding places for a platoon to
hide. We go waltzing out of here, we'll be sitting ducks.'

Willis pulled
his shirt back on and said, 'I've just had the weirdest images of
dancing ducks.'

'Swan lake?'
offered Staples. 'Sorry. Ok. We must assume enough soldiers were
left behind to babysit us until the brass decide what to do with
us.'

'Like we have
anywhere to go anyway,' said Willis.

'Actually, we
might have somewhere to go,' said Salamandra. 'We can all go to my
people.'

'Said the
spider to the fly,' said Staples.

'Still don't
trust me? Fine. You do your own thing, I'll take the rest of us to
my people and safety.'

Gunther said,
'We were just discussing it. One minor detail. We'll never make ten
yards outside.'

'Great,' said
Willis. 'We stay here, we die. Go out, we die.'

Gunther stared
at Staples and asked, 'We either go together or not at all. What is
it to be?'

Staples looked
at Bridget and said, 'If there's any way out of here, we go
together.'

* * *

'Ready?' said
Gunther.

'Go for it,'
said Salamandra.

The main door
of the Base slid open just enough for the vehicle to roll outside,
then slid shut again. It made just twenty yards before being
blasted to scrap metal. Up in the shattered turret, Staples heard
the telltale sounds of laser and had a damned good idea of the
direction the shooting was coming from. The gas cannister launcher
rattled his eardrums as he fired off twenty of them where he hoped
it would do the most good. He poked a hand outside to test the wind
direction and smiled.

'Enough to put
hundreds to sleep.'

It was time to
go. The Charger was ready to go and Gunther, Salamandra and Willis
were in passenger seats, laser rifles at the ready and Bridget was
in the driving seat. Staples dived into the back. 'I've no idea if
I got them all. The decoy Charger worked perfectly.'

'Ready to go?'
Bridget asked.

'Go!' said
Gunther.

Chargers were
nothing more than glorified thinly armour plated personnel
carriers. They were still vulnerable to sustained laser fire but
they did have a nifty turn of speed when required. Zero to two
hundred in four seconds. In exactly four seconds, Bridget had the
gauge needle indicating that limit had been pushed to the maximum.
That didn't stop laser power burning holes into the side of the
vehicle, narrowly missing Willis' head by inches.

'I do wish folk
would stop shooting at me.'

'Then shoot
back,' yelled Staples. 'You have one good arm, don't you?'

'Yeah. I'd give
my right arm to be ambidextrous. Give me that damn rifle.'

With the rear
door wide open, Willis and Staples could see that two soldiers
hadn't succumbed to the gas and were gaining on the Charger on two
stingers.

'Wonderful.'
said Staples. 'Missiles heading our way are all we need.'

'They're still
out of our range,' said Willis. 'But we aren't out of theirs.'

'Bridget!'
bellowed Staples.

'Going as fast
as we can.'

Willis said,
'I'll get out and push if it helps.'

'Incoming,'
said Staples.

The stinger's
missile weaved its way through the air and a fortuitous bend in the
desert road had the Charger in the wrong place. The missile
threatened the paintwork, but little else. The stingers were still
gaining on the Charger and another missile streaked towards the
vehicle and this one was bang on target. There was only one way to
survive this one and both Willis and Staples held their triggers
down on their laser rifles. Thirty yards to go and the missile blew
to bits.

'One of mine,'
said Willis.

'In your
dreams,' said Staples. 'You were miles out.'

'Crap,' said
Willis. 'Even with one hand I can out-shoot you blindfold.'

Staples said,
'Great. Then hit this next one.'

They still
fired together and didn't give a damn which of them blew up that
missile. Willis took his anger out on the stingers but his laser
was still shy of the distance. Staples knew they had pushed their
luck and the next missile would finish them off. Bridget took a
sharp bend around a high sandstone cliff and Staples saw his
chance. Taking careful aim he fired at the top of the cliff and
large chunks of stone tumbled down as the stingers rounded the
bend. The small sandstone avalanche crashed into the stingers and
their riders were thrown clear as the machines were buried.

'I'll give you
that one,' said Willis. 'Done?'

'Done,' said
Staples, closing up the rear door.

Chapter 67

He lay on the
bed still exploring the hosts mind. It was the emotions he found
most fascinating. Not the first he'd encountered, but definitely
the most defined. By contrast, on a planet now in his own distant
memory they had encountered a race of four-legged hairy creatures
which were, he admitted, reasonably intelligent, but were quite one
dimensional. Basically, what they didn't dislike, they hated. If
they had other emotions they were so buried they didn't come out
even if the sun shined. Humans on the other hand, had more emotions
than they knew what to do with and certainly more than they
needed.

He only knew
one life. He had no idea as to where his kind had originated from.
They crossed the galaxy, not in any conventional ship but in a
patched up mongrel of a collection of ships from many
civilisations. Some were so ancient, they served little purpose and
made something ugly look quite obscene. There were parts of the
ship even he hadn't ventured into. Eventually, the Goliath would be
an add-on to the rest, once it had landed on the planet the humans
called Spero. Apparently it meant hope in some ancient language.
Irony could often be delicious.

His ship was
half buried in the dust on the planet and they had waited for the
Goliath to land. Patience was the strongest virtue of his kind with
the ability to adapt a close second. But the storm had blocked out
all radio signals so monitoring the Goliath's progress was
impossible. Confusion when not the parent ship but a splinter off
it landed with just three humans landed. A plan was conceived and
using the clouds of the storm to make one human the new host. It
had been unbelievably simple to do and as if fate had ordained it,
the shuttle took them back to the Goliath. Here he could influence
events to go the way he needed them to go.

Inside him,
thousands fed off the host, taking only minuscule amounts of
protein in order to survive. It was simply a matter of time until
they each had a body to live in. He would retain this one. One
paradox to this nomadic, parasitic life was that by taking over a
body, that body became infertile. That was the one constant;
invariably happening time and time again. Then at the end of the
hosts life, they would be forced to share hosts which survived
until finally, only one remained. In the last few years of the
hosts life new plans would be made and new hosts would be
found.

The humans were
a gift from the cosmos, with thousands of unborn humans ready to
begin their own lives. From day one they would be hosts and become
the carrier of another sentient being. They would live out their
lives almost naturally, but their intelligence would be that of
another species. Inevitably they would age and finally die, and as
they drew their last breaths, those living inside them would move
on, discarding the host to move on yet again.

Even more
delicious was the fact that Earth could be reached within just a
few years and the humans there were ripe for the taking. For now he
just had to wait awhile longer, until it was time to enter the
incubation room and begin the cycle over again.

Chapter 68

It was a sombre
six hour drive at a shade under the top speed of two hundred miles
per hour, stopping only to eat and their ablutions. The road was
once the main highway built in the early twentieth century passing
through three countries. The many wars had taken its toll of the
towns and cities along the road and the highway itself had born the
brunt of several battles leaving the scars where missiles had left
a trail of wreckage and death. Between the cities where the desert
ruled, wild creatures made a healthy living by cleaning up the
carnage. So efficient they became that by the time teams from
either side arrived to bury their dead there was often nothing left
to bury. It was natures cycle of life.

They crossed
one boundary into Salamandra's territory where the damage inflicted
had all but levelled the entire city and Bridget slowed the vehicle
down.

Salamandra
said, 'Over sixteen thousand died here. Half were women and
children.'

Gunther
exchanged glances with his daughter, knowing exactly what she was
experiencing. He knew where most of the Tricor's might had been
unleashed and that Captain Bridget Loretti would be in the thick of
the arena, exchanging fire with the enemy. Now seeing it from the
ground and being told that she was responsible for the deaths of
innocent people including children would hit her hard. She
expressed no emotion but Gunther knew she would be churning up
inside. He knew because he was also suffering an inner turmoil even
though he had spent most of the time on the Base responsible for
the mission on the Earth's side. They drove on.

At a
crossroads, twisted rusting signs pointed vaguely towards other
cities and Bridget stopped.

'Which way?'
she said, looking at Salamandra.

'Changah could
be anywhere within a three hundred mile radius,' Salamandra told
her.

'So helpful.
I'll keep going straight.'

It was more of
the same as they swerved around fallen buildings. Bridget wondered
which had been brought down by her ship. It was the continuous
whine from the engine she could hear, but she swore the screams of
children blended in with it. The phrase, "Just following orders"
did little to alleviate her sorrow and pain. True. The enemy had
made sorties into her cities and destroyed much and killed many. It
was all relative. It also seemed so pointless.

They had just
left one bombed out shell of a city when they were jarred out of
their reflections as laser fire blasted the road in front of them,
Bridget having to take evasive action.