Sullivan Saga 3: Sullivan's Watch (12 page)

“In a building this size?”

“Fortunately, the evacuation was well under way when they attacked. And then we lost a lot when they came inside….”

“Children?”

“No. They all got out first.”

Ives smiled. “That’s good, Gail. Listen, you have three of these weapons, right?”

“Yes. A couple of the men have the other two.”

“And not to question your abilities, but why do you have one?”

“Instead one of the men, you mean?”

Ives hesitated. “No, I mean….”

“It’s all right, Agent Ives,” Gail said. “I’m ex-Army.”

“What rank?”

“Sergeant.”

“I’m glad to hear it. You can lead.”

Gail smiled. “I suppose.”

“Here are my thoughts,” Ives said. “I’ve seen a lot of activity in this area, but a few blocks over, where my building is, there hasn’t been anything going on since yesterday. Based on the few reports I have been able to hear, they’re sweeping the city from east to west. I think if we move your people east to my building, they’ll be safer.”

“You think they’re really moving west?”

“Yes. Why?”

“It just seems to me like they’re popping up in random places with those wormholes of theirs.”

“It seems that way, yes. But I think that was their initial shock tactic to confuse and scatter us. That’s what they were using those things with the claws and teeth for. But now that their soldiers are coming through, they’re much more organized. They’re hitting strategic locations like military bases but also sweeping all the major cities in a more-or-less predictable pattern. I don’t know what’s going on in the other boroughs, but here in Manhattan, they started in the east, at the water, and are moving west.”

“I’m sorry to disagree, Agent Ives, but I haven’t seen that from the news reports.”

“I’ve been getting intermittent updates from the Bureau. Nothing today, yet, but based on what I received yesterday, that’s the pattern I’m seeing. The news reports are, understandably, much less informative.”

Gail nodded. “All right. I’ll trust you on this.”

“Thank you. Can you get your people ready to go in ten minutes?”

“Make it twenty. These are civilians, remember.”

“Right. Twenty minutes, then. I’ll keep watch here while you do that. Could I ask…?”

“You want the gun?”

Ives smiled.

“Okay. But it’s only on loan.”

“Understood.”

Ives took the alien weapon and studied it. “Just point and shoot?”

“That’s right. I haven’t figured out how to check the charges or put any sort of safety on.”

“I guess that’s not really important right now, as long as it fires. Go get your people, Gail. Let’s make it as fast and as quiet as possible.”

SHE ONLY HAD a day and a half to prepare before they started arriving, but Kate had managed to seal up the doors and windows on the bottom floor of the house and stockpile enough food to last a couple of weeks. She’d boarded up the windows from the inside. The glass was designed to allow one to look out but keep people on the outside from seeing in. From the street, the house did not look like it had been fortified or unusual in any other way. Fortunately, Rick had already stockpiled a decent supply of weapons. She didn’t have a lot of experience with them, but she felt confident she could put up a defense if necessary.

The few casual friends Kate had made since she’d been on Faris had been reluctant to heed her warnings. She’d finally given up and simply told them to come to her house if something happened. So far, none of them had arrived.

As she sat in her darkened living room, the television turned to the news channel but muted, she listened for any activity in the street. According to the news, the alien creatures had been seen in Faris’s capital but not anywhere near Kate’s city. She knew Earth was under attack because of Frank’s warning, but the people of Faris knew nothing. They were seeing these creatures for the first time. Faris’s defense forces had been mobilized, and they had at least figured out that the aliens were coming through wormholes.

Kate watched the footage of the evacuation of the capital. She knew that with the wormholes, the aliens could be in her city at any time. They could appear behind walls, maybe even inside of buildings. There were no troop movements to give advance warning, no shifting battles lines to watch. By simply attacking one city and showing what they could do, the aliens had effectively put the entire planet under siege.

The image on the screen shifted, and Kate recognized a unique building that stood only a few kilometers from her house. It was near the city center. She turned up the volume.

“Fear has given way to panic as the alien threat spreads. We are now receiving reports from nearly every large city across Faris, including here in….”

Kate muted the television again. It had begun. She figured her best bet was to keep the lights off and make as little noise as possible. The car was in the garage, stocked with food and other supplies if she did need to leave, but if her house looked like it had been evacuated, maybe they would pass her by.

She got up from the couch and walked over to the window looking out into the street. She pulled back the curtain an inch. Kate had left a small gap between the boards over each window so she could peek out. The three houses she could see across the street were alive with activity as her neighbors loaded up their cars, preparing to evacuate.

She had considered doing the same, but where would she go? There was a definite pattern to the where the wormholes were appearing: they were attacking the largest cities first and working their way down to the smaller ones. Eventually, they’d get to even the small towns. After that, the wilderness or some rural area would be her only option.

But why were they even here? Faris had no ships that could be dispatched to help defend Earth. Even if they did, the time it’d take for them to get there would make the effort futile.

Frank had said something about the hyperspace entities directing these aliens to the planets inhabited by humans. That had to be it. Kate had seen how the entities could influence humans, direct their actions. She supposed they were doing the same thing to the aliens. Strategically, Faris was no threat to the aliens, but the entities had apparently decided to wipe out humanity. No planet would be left safe until either all the aliens were dead or all the humans were. By mere chance, Rick and Frank had ended up on the front lines of this battle. They were the only ones with enough knowledge of the entities to possibly do something. Kate had no idea what that was, but she knew the two men well enough to know they would not give up until all options were exhausted. She knew they’d fight to the death to stop the threat.

This last thought made her uneasy. She considered reading one of her father’s books on Stoicism, perhaps Epictetus. She had drawn strength from the philosophy in the past. She had been able to alleviate some of her concern by focusing on the fact that worrying about things out of her control did nothing to change the situation.

But as with most things, the idea was a lot easier to embrace in theory rather than in practice. She could not stop herself from worrying about Rick and Frank, and she would not try. As long as she didn’t let it impair her judgment or prevent her from taking the actions she needed to take to keep herself safe, she felt she deserved at least that.

Kate returned to the couch and picked up the handgun on the coffee table. It was the gun Rick had showed her how to use. She hadn’t actually fired it, but it was equipped with a laser sight and an internal recoil buffering system. Rick had said that as long as she took the time to line up her shots in the sight, there was little chance of missing. She spent a few minutes memorizing the positions of the safety switch and the magazine release. She could worry, but she would be ready.

A commotion in the street brought her back to the window. She opened one side of the curtain again. The first thing she saw was Douglas, the neighbor directly across from her. He was screaming and waving his arms wildly as his family bundled into their car. He bolted for the car, got in and slammed the door shut just as one of the alien creatures sprinted into sight. It rushed the driver’s side door but bounced off of it. Douglas started the engine and backed the car out into the street. The alien again rushed the car but bounced off the hood as Douglas sped away, in the opposite direction from which the alien had come.

Kate looked at the two other houses she could see through the narrow gap. One of the families appeared to have already left. The other was still in the driveway. The alien turned its attention to them as they slammed their doors and prepared to flee.

As it had before, it charged the car. This time it shattered the front window on the passenger’s side. In a blur of movement, it had its clawed hands inside the vehicle. Kate could see the mother—she didn’t know her name—screaming as the car backed out and the creature continued to hang on. The car screeched into the road and up onto the sidewalk opposite. Kate lost sight of it but saw it again a moment later as it sped past her window. She couldn’t see if the alien was still hanging on or not.

Kate moved into the dining room and looked through the boards over that window. The alien was in the street. It looked injured, and Kate guessed the car had backed over one or both of its legs. She didn’t know what kind of injury it had done to the woman in the car, but its claws were red with blood.

Kate let the curtain fall and returned to the living room. She sat down in front of the television. Scenes of chaos played out on the screen. The producers were being careful to not show anything too gruesome, but it didn’t matter. The horror of what was happening was all too apparent.

Kate clicked off the television. She didn’t need to see the same tragedies being looped over and over again. She’d check the news periodically for updates, but for now, she just wanted to sit in the dark and mentally prepare for what was to come.

HIS PHONE BEGAN to buzz, and Ives scrambled to answer it. There was no way of knowing how long the connection would last.

“Agent Ives,” he said quickly.

“Jeff? It’s Leo Blanco.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you still at the same location?”

“Yes, my apartment building. I have a couple hundred people here who need evacuating. The military was evacuating people a few blocks over, but I haven’t seen any activity in the past few hours.”

“All military personnel have been given new orders, Jeff. It’s… not going well. They simply can’t afford to have men tied up in evacuation maneuvers.”

“So they’re leaving us….”

“The way they see it, defeating the aliens takes priority, even if it means civilians are left high and dry in the meantime.”

“So what the hell am I supposed to do? Sit here and wait it out?”

“I can get a ship to you, Jeff. It’s only a commuter shuttle, but it can transport forty people. But look, you’re not the only evacuation point. I have dozens of requests for assistance from around the city. Once people knew the military wasn’t going to help them, the turned to the Bureau for assistance.”

“So what’s your plan?”

“The injured, the infirm and children take precedence. There are a lot of wounded out there, people who will die unless they get to a medical facility.”

“I understand.”

“Once those in greatest need have been evacuated, we can try to swing back to your location to evacuate the rest.”

“What’s the ship’s ETA?”

“Fifteen minutes. Get your people ready, Jeff.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ives hung up the phone and began giving orders to have any sick or injured brought down to the lobby of the building. He knew that number would be close to forty. The children would have to wait.

After those to be evacuated were gathered, he quickly explained the situation. To his surprise, not too much of a fuss was raised over the fact that they weren’t all going. The past few days had worn on them all, though, and few had much energy left.

Ives kept watch out the front door of the building. He saw the ship arc around from the north and approach his block. It came to a stop above the street and began descending. The doors were thrown open as soon as it had landed, and two armed men jumped out. Ives called them over and, with the help of some of the stronger men in the building, began evacuating the injured.

As soon as the last person was aboard, the ship took off again and sped away to the south. Ives stood on the sidewalk for a moment, looking down the street in both directions to make sure the evacuation hadn’t drawn any unwanted attention.

A block away, half a dozen alien soldiers appeared, moving quickly toward him.

Ives ducked back into the building. “I need the big guns out here!” he yelled.

Gail and the two men armed with the alien energy weapons rushed forward.

“Six of them,” Ives said, “approaching from the south.”

“I thought you said they’d cleared this area,” Gail said with a frown.

“I said the general trend was for a westward movement across the city. These must be stragglers.” Ives turned to the two men. “They’re still out of weapons range. Get across the street to the doorway of the building opposite. Hopefully we can split them.”

The men dashed out into the street and quickly covered the distance. Ives peeked out again and saw three of the aliens also cross the street while the other three kept coming toward him.

“Gail,” he said, “they’ll be in range of your gun long before I’ll be able to shoot at them with my pistol. Fire as soon as you think you can hit them.”

She nodded. Across the street, the other two began firing.

“Are they in range?” Ives asked.

“No,” Gail said. “They don’t know what the hell they’re doing.”

A few seconds later, Gail fired. “Now they are,” she said. “Get back!”

She grabbed Ives by his shoulder and pulled him back into the alcove of the doorway. An energy beam shattered the side of the alcove, sending concrete spraying out into the street.

Gail dropped to one knee, raised the weapon again and swung around the corner. She fired two shots in quick succession. “Got ’em!”