Colonization (Alien Invasion Book 3) (24 page)

“Give it to me, Piper!”
Trevor hissed. His hand shook. His eyes seemed panicked.

Instead of answering, Piper looked toward the gate then back at Heather, who was now dragging Christopher toward the house. She began to move. Terrence had joined Trevor behind Piper rather than going with Christopher and Heather. Monks in street clothes brought up the rear in a second group.

As Piper looked back, a second shuttle loomed behind Franklin and the others.

There was a bright flash, a chorus of screams, and a waft of hot flame.

In that flash, the party of fugitives had dwindled to three: Piper, Trevor, and Terrence.

They ran, the deadly alien sphere moving into position behind them.

C
HAPTER
31

Cameron could hear a commotion ahead, but the path between gates remained deserted and still.

He’d seen Heaven’s Veil many times on the various hacked camera views Terrence had given them access to over the years, but he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes since leaving the house with Piper all that time ago.

The surrounding area was still thick with trees and hills, but Astral terraforming had denuded the city’s land itself and a wide ring around it, grinding rock and soil to make it flat. He’d heard and seen that the city was mostly concrete, slab stone, and the odd patch of grass for opulence (especially around the viceroy’s mansion), but the apron was almost baked clay.

The gate was wide. It scrolled backward into recesses at the opening’s sides. Between the two edge posts lay a wide area cut lower into the rock, like the vast drainage systems Cameron had seen in urban California. The valley continued forward to a second set of gates, also left open.

Halfway between the two gates, walking steadily through the center of the recessed valley, Cameron wondered if the Astrals would simply close the gates and trap him between them.

A new question rose to match it:
Why?

They could have killed him a dozen times already. He’d stood in front of five shuttles a few hours ago, before being surrounded by millions of floating BBs.

They knew he was here. For whatever reason, they’d decided it wasn’t in Cameron Bannister’s fate to be killed out of hand. Why, he didn’t know.

But really, did it matter?

He couldn’t run.

He couldn’t ask Benjamin, Danika, or Charlie for advice.

He couldn’t get in touch with Terrence.

If the Astrals knew he was in Heaven’s Veil, Cameron was doing all he could hope to do. If he played along, he might find a way to hand off his true purpose. He wasn’t carrying a nuke, which they might suspect. He wasn’t here to assassinate Meyer Dempsey, which they also might suspect. He was carrying a small cylinder. He merely needed to plug it into the right holes, or hand it off to any one of several right people.

That might still be possible, even in the throat of a trap. There still might be a way.

Cameron walked forward, heart in his throat.

C
HAPTER
32

Meyer was stopped by the massive muscular arms of two Titans as he tried entering the main thoroughfare near the gate. He’d passed several circling Reptars already, all eyeing him with what he thought (and definitely sensed) was anger. But they’d let the viceroy by. He’d seen two shuttles, both practically parked as they hovered in their out-of-the-way positions in two of the better city back yards. They hadn’t even twitched.

But the Titans stopped him.

“I’m the viceroy,” Meyer said unnecessarily. “Let me through.”

The Titan on the right gave Meyer a soft, pleasant smile without moving his arm. The smile was maddening in his agitated state. It was impossible to anger the Titans. You could drop your drawers and shit on their feet; they’d smile blandly down while you did it. Reptars would correct your
faux pas
with teeth and claws.

“Let me through,” he repeated.

The second Titan shook his head, also smiling. Meyer’s mind filled with an image of a green circle, its edges outlined in black. The symbol meant nothing to him, but he understood its meaning from a warm sense of emotion wafting from the Titan: the area was controlled, somehow restricted. And he wouldn’t be going through no matter who he was.

“My wife is in there. Piper. You know Piper Dempsey?”

Meyer saw a flash inside his mind: Piper, as she appeared on the occasional broadcast. He was annoyed to be reminded of his wife’s identity, but he understood. He’d asked the question. They’d answered.

“One of the rebels, too. One of them is outside. I know something about him, if he’s who I think, you might not know that — ”

Again, Meyer saw the green circle with the black outline. This time, the image came from higher. From Divinity, aboard the mothership.

“You’re just going to let him in?” Meyer tried to summon pointless indignation. “What if he has a nuke? What if he plans to blow up Heaven’s Veil? I don’t know if you know much about nukes, but if they get close like this, it doesn’t matter how much you try to — ”

The Titan on the right cut him off again, still pleasantly smiling. He held up a tiny sliver object. It looked like a stainless steel pearl.

To accompany it, again, Meyer saw the green circle in his mind. He sensed his earlier panic starting to subside, as if the Astrals’ collective will was pushing it down. He could still sense something in the group mind that felt like Reptar rage but could no longer feel the discordant sense of unraveling plans, and panic about the man outside the gate. Whatever had alerted them earlier, it wasn’t bothering them now. And he couldn’t sense any worry over Piper, as if all that alarm over her disappearance had ceased to matter.

Move along,
the Titans seemed to say.
Nothing to see here.

At the far side of Meyer’s vision, just beyond the Titan’s shoulder, he could see a single, young-looking man with untidy brown hair appear in the valley between the inner gates. The aliens were staying back, mostly invisible from the approaching man. Meyer could see him, but the Titans were doing their best to stay hidden from the walking man.

Still the Titans’ pleasant expressions seemed to say:
Move along. Nothing to see here
.

Behind him, in the blocks to Meyer’s rear, a contingent of Reptars circled and prowled, thinking alien thoughts of murder.

C
HAPTER
33

A shuttle flashed, discharging its weapon two blocks up. A woman screamed, and Raj swore he could smell charred flesh. Then he heard running and saw the shuttle’s pursuit.

He thought to flee in the other direction, but that was old Raj thinking. He was no longer a scared little Indian, running from alien ships while dodging emasculating abuse from Lila alongside her mother’s racist barbs. He wouldn’t pretend he commanded those ships (though he sometimes dreamed of a day when he might), but he didn’t have to run from their danger.

They shared a side, the Astrals and Raj.

What they pursued, he could pursue.

What they incinerated, he more or less wanted incinerated … or at least understood.

Instead of running from the shuttle, Raj ran toward it.

His mind showed him the map he’d seen back in the guard shack. He knew where the red dot had been and where the flash must have occurred relative to it. If he added the city’s double front gates and the long sunken valley sloping between them, the three points drew a straight line.

The conclusion was obvious: something was happening near the gate, and the Astrals were headed to intercept it, apparently blowing things up along the way.

Was it Piper? What if she’d fallen in with malcontents, and whoever had fired the weapon earlier — whoever was running from the shuttle — was one of them?

The shuttle rose above the buildings ahead, seeming to give up its chase. Raj stood still, making no effort to hide, watching it fly directly overhead.

He stood indecisive for a minute after the ship passed, torn between investigating whatever the thing had just blown up and the survivors it had lost (or lost interest in) and discovering what commotion lay at the gate.

Before he could make a decision, Raj heard the shuffling of feet: the runners he’d heard earlier. The ones who’d been fleeing the shuttle, running right toward him.

This time he
did
slink back, pressing himself into a doorway.

Peeking around a corner, Raj saw Piper.

Terrence was with her, apparently helping the deserter. That made sense; Raj had been watching Terrence for a while now, sure he was up to something.

The party’s third member was harder to account for, and would definitely be more difficult to explain to the viceroy. It was Trevor Dempsey.

Raj let them pass then turned to follow, keeping low and staying hidden.

Raj mostly liked Trevor, but this was business.

These three may have somehow evaded the shuttle and peacekeepers; they wouldn’t escape the commander of the guard.

And wouldn’t the viceroy be thrilled when Raj caught loose ends missed by the Astrals’ best efforts?

C
HAPTER
34

Trevor took the lead.

His breath was short and fast. He remembered playing paintball in his youth, before the world had ended, and the way he’d ducked around a faux warscape in a protective helmet to play it. The helmet had only been a hat with a face shield, more or less open, and he’d been playing a harmless war game — and yet he’d still felt suffocated by his breath.

This was like that. Trevor felt as if a cotton wad had been stuffed down his throat.

But this wasn’t a game. He was on the losing side, no doubt. It might not even matter that he was the viceroy’s son. The Astrals kept Meyer because he was well liked by what remained of North America and was now known to the rest of the world. Meyer was a face that humanity seemed willing to trust, but Trevor had no illusions; the Astrals were in charge and would only keep partners for as long as those comrades stayed out of their way.

Piper was in their way now. Terrence had already told Trevor that whatever she’d stolen had been worth going to the dissidents for. Piper’s behavior rammed that point home. She’d stolen something from Meyer’s computer, and that something had been troubling enough to trigger a rather violent reaction. He’d seen their trailing knot of people turned to ash by the shuttle. Trevor, Terrence, and Piper were only alive now because they’d been twenty feet farther down the street when the weapon had discharged.

Trevor looked back, expecting to see the shuttle. But it wasn’t there; they’d somehow eluded their pursuer. Shuttle attacks didn’t fire like bullets or rockets. They used quick-cook heat rays. It didn’t take long to bake what they aimed at, but it did take a second or two. And in that second — against all odds and hope — they’d managed to sneak away.

It seemed too good to be true, but it was their reality nonetheless. They were alive, but they couldn’t expect that kind of luck to hold out.

They had to keep running. Stay hidden. Conceal themselves from prying eyes.

Despite what he’d told Piper, Trevor wasn’t positive he could talk his way out of the gate at all — let alone with a fugitive and another hanger-on. Still, he had to try. It was all they had. Either the shuttle had seen the three of them with the party they’d killed, or it hadn’t. Either the Astrals knew flight was afoot, or they didn’t. They’d either shifted their attention to whoever might be waiting at the gate … or they’d split their search in two, now looking for this knot of bandits as well.

There would be no going back to the house for Piper. Not after that shuttle blast.

Trevor could only try.

He
had
to try.

And if they could reach the gates clean — if Trevor could keep Piper away from Astral eyes for long enough to figure his angle — then maybe they’d survive. Maybe
she’d
survive.

If they could reach the gates undetected.

But Trevor couldn’t shake a sinking feeling that their luck was already gone.

C
HAPTER
35

The area around the gate was entirely deserted.

Cameron almost wanted to raise his hands, feeling like a lone cowboy sauntering into an enemy camp in an old western. He wanted to take his fingers away from his guns and hold them high, telling the sentries who had him in their sights that he meant no harm.

But there were no sentries.

There were no guards.

There were no shuttles, no animal-like peacekeepers, none of the big white beings the press called Titans. No human guards, from the viceroy’s detachment or otherwise. No police. No vehicles; no automated weapon systems; no locks; no slots or scanners to verify Cameron’s ID or rights to be here.

There was nothing at all.

Cameron walked through the gate and up the slowly rising valley between it, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He felt fatalistic, like he had no choice. His actions were stupid. But really, how stupid was it compared to the mission’s idiocy in general?

Benjamin had given him a communication virus that he knew full well might fry the network rather than freeing it. Cameron wasn’t deaf. He’d heard the discussion, both from Terrence’s end during their original journey to Vail and back at Moab. Canned Heat had a fifty-fifty chance of working, at best. The wrong 50 percent left them worse than cut off, of no use to anyone, deader than they’d already been.