Earth Vs. Aliens (Aliens Series 1) (27 page)

Menoma’s white-tufted tail whipped side to side. It still leaned forward as if ready to pounce. “Oh? Just how do you plan to defeat all of us, when your own Unity culture wishes to believe we visitors are actually . . . nonviolent, peaceful and ready to hand you technology you have yet to discover?”

The Alien was correct about the Communitarian delusion which now ruled Earth and its outposts. Except for the Belt. “We humans change our cultures nearly as often as we change our clothes. What you
assume
to occur will
not
occur.”

Menoma stood up and hop-walked back a meter. “You are seven ships. Your Unity is many more. Why should my people, or those outside in the Gathering Hall, fear you? Success in a few Challenge battles is not permanent success.”

“True.” Jack stood up and backed away from the table edge, finger-talking to his fellows to do the same. Ignacio gathered up the loose meat packets, stuffed them into his backpack, and backpedaled toward where Jack and his other captains now clustered. “You will learn about how I aim to achieve
permanent
success once we all rejoin our ships in orbit.”

Menoma’s golden yellow eyes scanned them all, then refixed on Jack. “That assumes you survive your crossing of the hall to the elevator that brought you here from the surface. The winged Krisot competitors may attack you as you leave here. Even if you do return to your ships, the Rule of the Watering Hole is that no ship engages in species-on-species Challenges while in orbit. Non-combat
is
the function of watering holes among you Earth animals.”

“True.” Jack couldn’t resist a final parting shot. “But we could take care of you HikHikSot right now. By shooting you.” He put his right hand on the butt of his revolver.

Menoma the cheetah-leopard blurred as it jumped up onto the table. From its shoulders now pointed two laser tubes. They glowed with energy. The Alien CEO grinned toothily. “Or I could kill all of you Humans right now.”

Akemi had pulled her
katana
and Maureen had both her revolvers out and pointing in the second it had taken the Alien creature to move to the offense. Jack held up both hands palm outward. “No need. Once we dispatch the other predators in orbit you HikHikSot will have no more customers for your data modules and Earth spy work. Perhaps you will leave peacefully. And you . . . Howler said the rules are that no personal energy weapons were allowed in the Gathering Hall.”

Menoma snarled, its stance still a forward lean as if it might pounce rather than use tech to harm Jack and his allies. “That rule only applies to
other
predators. Not to we HikHikSot. This is
our
base. Our watering hole. We control everything that happens on and about Sedna!”

To Jack’s sides his people had spread out. There was no way this Menoma could kill them all with his two shoulder lasers. Still holding his hands upright, Jack stepped back slowly. “Perhaps you do. We leave now. But we will make a broadcast to you and to all predators before our ships leave orbit.”

Menoma eyed his spread out people, then came back to Jack. “You humans are every bit as strange and violent as your television shows depict! Leave! And return not to Sedna!”

“We leave,” Jack said, backing away slowly as his other captains formed a cordon about him. “May you enjoy your elk meat. It could be your last meal.”

“Human!”

A green laser beam shot from Menoma’s right shoulder to scorch the floor in front of his feet.

“
Blam!
”

Maureen’s revolver shot dinged off the rear wall of the triangular chamber. He knew that she had intentionally missed Menoma. Whose mouth now showed white flecks, as if he ached to take a bite out of a human. Any human.

“Akemi, tap the contact plate once, then lead us out into the Gathering Hall. Watch out for these Krisot avians! They looked eager to attack when we came to the green portal.”

Behind Jack he heard a whistle as the portal door rose up. The sounds of dozens of Alien voices echoed within Menoma’s room. He stepped back over the portal threshold, still facing the Alien Manager. The second the portal dropped down he pulled Old Roy and faced forward.

Ten Krisot aliens jumped into the air, flapped their red and black feathered wings, then dove toward his people.

“
Blam! Blam! Blam!
” came repeated shots from Maureen’s, Aashman’s and Ignacio’s revolvers.

Three Krisot shrieked with pain, showed red blood spots on their blue-feathered chests, then fell onto their own platform.

Jack pulled his revolver, aimed and put five shots into the two nearest Krisot chests even as giant yellow beaks opened to bite into him and his people. He dropped the empty revolver, lifting his sword with both hands.

“
Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!
” came a second volley of shots from the revolver carriers.

“Spread out! And fight!”

The wings of five ferocious Krisot whapped against Jack, Maureen, Aashman and Ignacio, knocking the guns from their hands. Akemi fell back, dodging a yellow beak aimed at her head. Clawed feet scratched at Jack’s Kevlar vest while a yellow beak dived at his face.

He dropped, rolled under the clustering and flapping Krisots, then stood and dove Old Roy into the butt of a Krisot as its lion tail whipped wildly. It screeched in pain, trying to look over its feathered back even as it flapped its wings and clawed at his friends with its four talon-feet. Pulling the Viking long sword out of the faltering avian, he turned to the four still in hover-attack mode.

Akemi’s long sword gleamed with red blood as she slashed two hind feet off of one hovering Krisot.

Júlia, knocked onto her back by the initial assault, reached up with her bronze scythe-sword and ran its tip through the belly of a hovering Krisot, pulling out entrails.

Minna, her white blouse red with blood spots, dodged a backward foot kick and then drove her long Viking blade into the side of a Krisot on Jack’s left. Ignacio and Kasun drove sword and staff into a fourth avian he had stabbed. The fifth attacker, dripping blood from its four taloned feet, lifted up on broad wings and hover-flapped seven meters above them, its two red eyes flashing hunger at them even as its pod-mates lay dead or wounded on the ground.

“Humans die!” it screeched in high-toned English

Maureen rolled out from under the pile of dead griffin Aliens at the green portal, standing up shakily. Her Kevlar vest showed long scratches and her left cheek had a cut from her right cheekbone down to her chin. It bled redly. Dropping her empty revolvers, Maureen stood up, eyed the single surviving Krisot as it screeched defiance above them, then pulled her javelin from her back scabbard. Leaning back, she aimed and threw the slim spear.

The Krisot, having tilted over to make another dive attack on Jack’s people, screeched again. “Now you die!”

The javelin pierced its chest just below the yellow beak, sliding into its long lion body like a hot knife through butter. Shock showed in the red eyes.

“No, no!” it cried in a dying whistle as its chest spurted heart blood, the wings flapped erratically and then it simply dropped from the air to land ten meters away.

A crowd of other predator Aliens, among them Gyklang grizzlies, Yiplak hyenas, Hackmot lizards and Rizen lion-hippos, stopped their movement toward Jack and his people. The loud snarls, growls, wheeps, barks and Alien whistles died down. In front of them Kasun moved with his stave, stabbing it into the bodies of any Krisot who still twitched. Aashman, his revolver dropped, sat atop one wounded Krisot and slammed his spike-gloves into its eagle head until the dull light in the creature’s red eyes went out.

“Damn!” Aashman cursed. “You died too quickly!”

Jack held Old Roy out in front of him, its blood runnel dripping red Krisot blood. He glanced around quickly, hopping to see everyone alive and moving.

Akemi showed two blood-red cuts down her left arm, even as she stood to his far left with her
katana
lifted high.

Ignacio, hulking beside her, had a bloody head wound from where a Krisot beak had struck him. But the Basque held his Roman short sword outward with one hand, his other hand holding a flat throwing knife that Jack realized came from his empty legging.

Minna was folding a piece of her blouse into a wad that she pushed against her left breast, which seemed to have been talon-pierced. Her long sword was held in her right hand, her face showing a battle hunger that said her wound had only incited her.

Aashman, one of those pushed against the green portal in the initial attack, showed long cuts on both legs from Krisot talon strikes. His brown face looked pink from wing impacts. But as he rose from finishing off the last Krisot survivor, he held his bloody spike-gloves outward, ready to drive two-inch long spikes into any opponent.

Júlia, to his right, did not show any wounds, perhaps due to her short height and quickness in dodging the initial flight-rush. But her brown wool overshirt showed plenty of blood spots from the entrails she had pulled out with her scythe-sword. She now held it outward, ready for more attackers.

Beyond her limped Kasun, who showed a deep gash in his right knee. Still, the Sri Lankan captain seemed able to move. He aimed his stave-spear outward, clearly read to fight on.

Farthest away was Maureen, who’d fired both revolvers empty against that first aerial attack. She held her short sword in both hands even as she ignored her left cheek slash. She stood as steady as the ancient Rock of Gibraltar. He wished his Grandpa Ephraim could have been here to see Maureen fight.

Jack swung his long sword from left to right in front of the gathered Alien crowd. “Anyone else wish to provide Meat to humans? We hunger for your blood. And we have only just begun to fight!”

A Rizen lion-hippo charged out of the frozen crowd.

Jack dropped, grabbed his remaining shin knife, stood and threw it at the softer skin under the Rizen’s shark-mouth. The blade sank deep. The Alien bellowed.

“Humans are—” it began gurgling instead of talking.

Akemi flashed forward, her
katana
swinging downward so fast all Jack saw was a light flash.

The Rizen’s two black eyes showed shock. Then the head slowly separated from the rest of its body as the Alien’s six legs carried its tubular body a meter further, before collapsing. Red blood spewed out of two neck arteries. The front foot-hands shivered, then went still.

A Gyklang panda-grizzly rose up two meters tall and roared. It charged forward.

Aashman threw his stave like a spear and the curved white steel tip sliced deep into the white-striped black fur of its belly.

Jack jumped forward in five leaps, thrusting Old Roy up into the Alien’s bearish head where it entered just below the white canines of its snout. His sword tip poked through the black-furred skull. Three pink eyes looked down at him with an Alien look he did not understand. But the sudden reaching of both paw-arms he did understand.

Pulling Old Roy out of the panda-grizzly’s head, he dropped below long black claws as two paws converged where his head had been. His upper back felt a brushing touch. Then he thrust his sword into the middle of the creature’s chest, to where its heart might be. It howled. Jack pulled out his sword, stepped back a pace, waited for another paw-arm to swing, then swung with Old Roy.

The Gyklang’s right paw-arm separated at the elbow, dropping to the metal flood of the Gathering Hall with a loud thump.

Jack dodged a weaker smash-wave from the Alien’s left arm, then swung Old Roy in an overhead downswipe.

The left paw-arm dropped to the floor.

Red blood flooded out from both arm remnants, joining the blood flowing from under its jaw and its belly. The Gyklang choked, tottered, then fell forward, face down, at Jack’s feet. He drove Old Roy down into the Alien’s skull until it hit the metal floor under the head.

“Enough!” came the amplified voice of Menoma the Manager.

The Alien crowd facing Jack, which had frozen as two of their group attacked him and his fellows, fell back slowly.

Jack turned around even as his seven fellows formed a protective cordon about him.

Menoma stood in the open green portal, a small device attached to his cheetah mouth. Both shoulder lasers glowed. Beside him stood Howler the Greeter, who had come from somewhere.

“Enough what, Manager of Sedna?” he asked, accepting his revolver as Maureen handed it to him. He pulled a speedloader from his belt and reloaded the gun.

The Alien scanned Jack and his team, looked at the Krisot bodies scattered in an arc before the green portal, then it gripped both chest straps. Golden yellow eyes blinked fast. “You humans will leave the Gathering Hall now! No trading. No more Challenges from any competitor in this room. That is my command!”

Jack looked up at the hall’s ceiling where six skylights offered deep blue views into the cold ocean of Sedna. Small shapes that resembled octopi moved across the lighted panels. A few long shapes that resembled tiny sharks moved in the waters beyond. He lifted his revolver and pointed it at the skylight above him.

“Shall I end your base here and now, Manager?”