Charger the Soldier (21 page)

Ben was an older man, well built, but not
strong. "Come on, mate," Ben said, "bring those pups to chowder,
let's eat up tonight, for tomorrow we might have to die."

Charger found it was getting easier to
control Mac, a fiery black and rust red short-haired Lycan, stocky
and exceptionally powerful in build, but Jill was still difficult.
She had long hair, the muted orange of the stripes on a Bengal
tiger, and was incredibly vicious and flexible, though her face was
delicate, almost human. She constantly nipped at Mac, who wanted
Charger to stop her doing that. It was annoying Charger, too. Or
were those Mac's thoughts? Sometimes Charger still clawed at his
own mind, trying to figure out whose thoughts he was thinking.

He ate a fine meal with Ben that night.
Rations tasted good in Mac's mouth, too. And Jill's. Ben chatted
away the evening, waiting for darkness to set in again. Charger
told Ben that as the aliens' way of combat seemed to be failing,
the smarter ones were forming together, trying to look like the
American machines.

He remembered waking one morning as the
aliens tried again to dislodge his group from stable high ground.
They formed into tank-like objects, massive in size, but they had
difficulty navigating the soft, wet soils. One crested a rise and
came face to face with an American M-1 tank. The alien version of
the M-1 dwarfed the real M-1, which was first to fire. Many rounds
poured into the alien machine, but did little damage at first. It
took the concentrated fire power of several tanks at just the right
moment to disable and destroy the fake tank.

The next night saw Charger and Ben sitting
beside a small campfire, warming their hands during a lull in the
fighting, and hoping the fire wasn't visible to the enemy. Mac and
Jill were roaming around in the dark, visiting other Lycans.
Charger could 'hear' their thoughts and conversation, but they were
just chattering so he ignored them.

Ben was doing all the talking, speculating
about the aliens and how the war might have been stopped earlier,
preventing many deaths. Charger mostly just listened. He never
could see any point talking if he had nothing to say.

"Mankind doesn't have to be evil," Ben said.
"The church was created and built by men and it cannot help being
imbued with our sinful nature. But if we simply believe and trust
in God, everything becomes simple. There would be no killing."

Charger sensed movement nearby. Stealthy
movement. And too close.

"Remember," Ben said, "evil can only thrive
when good men do nothing."

Charger swiveled suddenly and thrust his
sword into a small alien invader sneaking up behind Ben in the
dark.

He turned to face Ben. "I'm bad. But I'm good
at math."

Charger was glad to get back into the fight
when dawn came. Gunfire erupted as the aliens bore down on the
human soldiers behind him and the flashes lit up the morning
skyline. Aliens never seemed to fight on any schedule, always at
random times. He scrambled to his feet, ready to fight, when the
familiar clicking on his wrist computer picked up on three
Shillelaghs moving rapidly toward his western flank. This time he
didn't squat down and wait for the fight, but raced full speed down
the line toward the three, all the while flashing between Mac's,
Jill's, and his own vision.

Jill howled madly and bolted headlong into
the Shillelagh, but it was Mac who got there first. He hit the
closest Shillelagh so hard that for a moment Charger could feel
Mac's breath leave him. The Shillelagh went liquid and seemed to
splash everywhere. Jill was already mauling the second Shillelagh
when Mac joined in. Charger hit the third Shillelagh hard, slicing
deep into its armor. He focused on the gold multiple eyes, trying
to find a brain nearby so he could cleave off a chunk.

It was Jill who found the sweet spot, just
behind the eyes and down to the left. "Kill there!" is what he
heard from her mind. He struck hard at that spot and the third
Shillelagh fell dead. Mac and Jill were tormenting the second as it
lay dying on the ground.

The first Shillelagh had reformed itself and
seemed terrified at what had happened to the other two so quickly.
It tried to retreat, but ran into an excited Jill. By the time
Charger reached it, Mac and Jill were holding it from escaping the
way two cats might confine a mouse.

It had been a good morning to wreak revenge
for Chang, he thought, proud of what he had done. He was sure the
message got back to the aliens' command that this time all hope was
lost for them. This morning a new fighter had been born, this day
would be the beginning of the downfall of the invaders, as the new
weapon entered combat. The Vampire-Lycan hunting had begun and now
many Vamps would want the upgrade.

Getting a break before the next battle began,
Charger watched the news. The aliens had spread to much of Earth
and, when the military command finally got a satellite into orbit,
the remaining humans could see that behind enemy lines, the planet
was desolate.

Charger shook his head. Sure, the humans had
cut into the world for resources, built their homes on land taken
from other living beings, but they had been learning. Before the
invasion, they had begun giving back to Earth, patching damage done
here and there. Humans had felt good about themselves, he thought.
But in these satellite photos, Earth was black and barren. There
was nothing left behind the alien advance but bare dirt and
rocks.

And the new Hyborgs with Lycans? They were
nothing like him. They were smaller, with not as much of an edge.
Government cut-backs, the newscaster said. Charger laughed
bitterly. They were only Vamps and Lycans, they were only meant to
be cannon fodder. But they were angry now. The cry for avenging the
planet was growing.

S
ergeant Hanna Massey began searching the unspoiled
green area she'd stumbled into, wondering if her theory that it was
an enemy safe haven could be true. She moved carefully from fir
trees to cedar trees, sometimes crouching among tall ferns while
taking stock. She found no nests of aliens half buried in the soil,
no red mass, no sign of any life except for the plants. Flying over
from Europe, she'd heard via the radio about the aliens always
killing everything when they attacked, even plants and animals.
That made no sense. But if true, why hadn't they razed this place
down to dirt and rocks? She spent all the remaining daylight hours
searching, even to the borders of the green haven, but never
finding life. The whole sanctuary, from the ocean inland, was maybe
five miles square.

As night fell, Hanna decided to rest among
the trees. In the morning she would continue south, looking for a
military organization to join. As she set up her bedding gear, she
felt the urge to sleep weighing her down. But before she gave in,
it would be wise to record the area on her camcorder. Switching it
to night vision, Hanna began recording, panning the camera in all
directions. As she stared at the small viewing screen, a blur
flashed across it. A cold shiver ran the length of her body.

She moved the camera back toward the blur and
squinted at the small view screen. There! Something raced past the
camera again. Switching to infrared mode, Hanna looked around. With
her back pressed firmly against a large Douglas fir, she slowly
panned the camera around to her left shoulder. There, not more than
three feet from where she sat, four bright orbs hovered a few feet
off the ground, at the center of the camcorder screen. Then they
blinked. And blinked again.

"Shit!" Hanna screamed as she grabbed her
automatic weapon and fired round after round into the thick dark
forest in the direction of the blinking eyes.

She grabbed the camcorder again and flashed
the lens left, then right, up and down, trying desperately to find
those blinking eyes. There was nothing. Whirling around, she looked
behind her, half crazed with fear, and fired off more rounds until
the magazine was empty. Quickly she reloaded, snatched up her gear
and ran hard for the beach. She stopped twice to spray the area
with fire and reload, stumbling several times before she reached
the beach. There she plunged into the cold ocean water, deeper and
deeper. When the weight of the pack on her back forced her head
below water, Hanna finally stopped panicking and turned back.

She was alive. But this place was not a safe
haven for enemies, it was a trap for stray humans. She had survived
only because of the glimmering light she carried; it had to be very
important. "And what the hell was that in the bush?" she wondered.
"Goddamn invisible aliens." Hanna drew upon all her courage and set
out down the beach to find the human military so she could show
them the importance of the glimmering light she had.

For six days and nights, she trekked
southeast toward the last known American position identified on her
map, six days of blackened earth but no corpses. She'd never
experienced any fight without seeing the dead littering a
battlefield, but these aliens seemed to absorb everything in their
brutal assault.

In the heavy dew of the seventh morning,
Hanna found herself closing in on the rear of an advancing alien
armada. In front of the gigantic moving hulks lay a city already in
ruins and the sounds of artillery and gunfire crackled in the
distance. Her pace quickened. Her first thought was to join the
battle, to contribute all her combat training and determination to
defeating the invaders. But as soon as she started running forward,
a jet fighter streaked across the sky and dropped precision guided
munitions on one of the large alien objects.

The impact of the missiles sent a shock wave
strong enough to wrench the air from Hanna's lungs, sending her
sprawling. Thick alien mist mixed with dust swirling up from the
ground blinded her but, when the air cleared and the weapons fell
silent, Hanna could see that the three huge objects had been
brought to a halt. Scattered all around the base of the massive
objects darted alien troops fighting a battle with strangely shaped
Hyborg super-soldiers. Shaking the dirt from her clothes and pack,
Hanna rushed forward into battle, her weapon blazing in the morning
light.

She ran straight into an immense knurled
alien form that suddenly rose up from the dirt and opened a large
gaping mouth that revealed several rows of sharp teeth. Hunching
forward and howling, the alien lurched straight at Hanna in a
monstrous display of threat. Hanna stared into the multifaceted
eyes of the alien and, lunging forward herself, let out a primal
yell. For a moment, that stopped the alien in its tracks.

She had guessed these creatures might never
have encountered a human woman before and she hoped she looked just
as ferocious to them as they did to her. It had worked! Hanna
raised her weapon and squeezed the trigger, sending a plague of
bullets into the head of the alien, dropping it to the dirt. Hanna
smiled. She'd finally gotten a little payback for her fallen
comrades. She was determined not to miss any other
opportunities.

As the day wore on, the battle favored the
defending humans and the fight turned into a slaughter because the
aliens would not back down. Small groups of aliens were dug into
the dirt on a high patch of ground as the advancing human army,
with the Hyborgs, began encircling them just out of weapons range.
With only these few aliens remaining, Hanna conceived a brilliant
idea. She would try to take prisoners. She just needed to find
someone who spoke German so she could translate her idea into
English.

Rushing toward the human army, she waved her
arms until she attracted some attention. She finally found some
German soldiers to speak with and her plan was translated and
relayed to command. An hour later, she and her comrades were
summoned to the command tent to explain. With the aliens pinned
down and not going anywhere, the military had time to discuss
Hanna's proposal.

Later that evening, while the aliens holding
the high ground were patiently waiting for the humans to advance on
their position so they could be cut down like ripe wheat, Hanna and
the commanders were discussing the best strategy for capturing some
of them alive. They soon discovered that the small blinking light
had bonded with Hanna, for when she tried to turn the object over
to anyone else, it would stop flashing. She reported on the red
mass at the coast, the dying cities and structures, the strange
green spaces that were being left for straggling humans to wander
into, and most of all, the serious threat of invisible or
light-reflecting alien technology.

Scientists had learned that cold was the
biggest threat to the aliens, and this understanding was what drove
human survivors to demand transportation to the south and north
poles of planet Earth. No one in Hanna's command could guess what
attempting to freeze the trapped aliens might reveal, so it was
decided that several Hyborg vampires and their Lycans, with Hanna
and a few scientists, would attempt the impossible.

That night they would approach the aliens,
and try to capture them, hoping to discover their physiology and
weaknesses. Around midnight the small group quietly set out.

>>>

Ivan, leader of the Russian undead reds and
ever the opportunist, had discovered the aliens had a weakness. He
had surmised that if the aliens avoided the north due to the
extreme cold, they might also avoid extreme heat, such as the heat
of a flamethrower. Ivan tested the idea by replacing his machine
gun with a flamethrower in their first battle on American soil. The
aliens, in their encounter suits, were able to resist the flames'
heat for only for a short while. Eventually, the flames burned
through the suits, quickly cooking the invaders inside. Ivan's
compatriots followed his lead and exchanged their weapons for
flamethrowers. The undead reds became the front line on American
soil. Their thirst for revenge was so great that they were
unwilling to let Americans take the lead.