Erin M. Leaf (17 page)

Gideon was already at the window,
looking for a vehicle. He turned back to Theo and gave a thumbs up.

“Do you know how extensive the
invasion is? What cities?” Theo asked.

“Eastern Pennsylvania is occupied,
but New York and north is free. Pittsburgh is free. Looks like they decided to
take a bite out of us first,” the man said. “Unfortunately, they also took out
most of our military, too, so we’re on our own for now.”

“Oh my God, they haven’t taken over
everything yet?” Bea asked, heart pounding. This was the best news they’d had
so far.

Gideon flashed her a huge grin. “Alleluia.”

Theo looked at both of them, his
face half-grim, half-joyous. “We’ll be there as soon as we can,” he said.

“All right,” the man said, sounding
worried. “Hurry. Bring shotgun shells if you have any. Those work the best.”

“Copy that,” Theo said, then
dropped the microphone. He looked at Bea and Gideon. “We gotta move.”

“We don’t have any shotguns,” Bea
fretted, following him out of the building. Outside, some trees and buildings
were smashed, while others looked perfectly fine. The weirdest thing about the
area was the lack of sound. She heard birds, but there were no people. No
machines.

“We won’t need any,” Gideon said,
striding over to a pickup truck that looked as old as Theo’s. He broke the
window and unlocked the doors, then reached underneath the dash and began
ripping at wires.

“What happened to trying to
broadcast the weapon?” she asked, sliding in to the middle.

Gideon hooked two wires together
and the truck’s engine turned over. “I think you were right about that. We need
to be close to the enemy to make it work.”

Theo slid in beside her and shut
the door. “You’re thinking of hijacking their ship, aren’t you?”

Gideon buckled into the driver’s
seat, then flashed them a grin. “How’d you guess?”

Theo snorted. “Because that’s what
I was thinking.”

“Wait, what? Are you crazy?” Bea
held on tightly as Gideon peeled out of the parking lot. “What good will that
do?”

“Remember the weird sound when we
were in the elevator? If we can hook into their systems, I bet we can use our
weapon through theirs,” Gideon said, still grinning madly. “It’s still sort of
like broadcasting, but using their own equipment against them.”

“You’re insane,” Bea muttered, his
excitement pulling at her. She grabbed onto the dash when he made a sharp turn
onto the interstate. Cars littered the roadway and he couldn’t drive as fast as
he clearly wanted to, but he was trying.

“No, just trying to be practical.
We have armor that protects us and the only weapon that can harm the Sitnam.
It’s up to us to stop this irruption.”

“Gideon’s right,” Theo said slowly.
“Terrene is dead, and we know from Eran that they didn’t have a chance to use
the weapon Gideon’s mother developed. They only way we can survive, right now,
with our much less-developed technology is to strike them from the inside.”

Bea considered the idea. “How are
we going to get inside their ship?”

“Hack and destroy,” Gideon said
flippantly.

She made a disgusted sound. “This
isn’t a video game.”

He laughed. “I know. But really,
what other choice do we have?”

“The ship these people are fighting
is only one of many. What if they have more in orbit? What if they have a
portal, just like ours?” Bea’s mind sped up as she began to think of everything
that could go wrong. She really wished they could just go somewhere and hide
and forget about being heroes.
But that’s
not why you decided to become a doctor, is it?
a tiny voice said inside her
head.
You always wanted to save people.

Theo twisted in his seat and
grabbed her hands. “Bea, what choice do we have?” His armor scraped against
hers as he squeezed her fingers. “We
have
to try.”

Chapter Eleven

Theo pointed to the off ramp. It
was barely intact, but he thought it might be stable enough for their truck. “There,
Gideon.”

His partner nodded and swerved
around another derelict vehicle. “I see it.” He eased the truck onto the ramp
and slowed down. The Sitnam ship squatted over the car dealership like a
half-decaying mushroom. It was large and blocky and black. The side was pitted,
as if someone had spit acid at it.

Mortar
rounds?
he wondered. Whatever it was didn’t seem to have damaged it enough to stop
functionality.

“I see the people,” Bea said,
leaning against his arm. “There.” She pointed.

Theo frowned. They were trapped
inside the sales room. Strangely, the Sitnam didn’t seem to hear their truck. “Maybe
we should stop and go in on foot.” One of the Sitnam scratched at the glass
with its claws.

“What the hell are they doing? Why
not just level the building?” Bea asked.

“I bet they’re looking for
information,” Theo said, frowning. He glanced at her. “Interrogation.”

She shuddered. “We’d better hurry.”

Gideon nodded and pulled off to the
side. “We can cut through the woods, come up from the rear.”

****

Ten minutes later they were edging
along the back of the dealership, looking for an open door.

“Here,” Theo said, turning a
doorknob. He eased it open, then moved in, staying near the wall. Bea and Theo
followed him. They were in the garage. There were three cars on lifts and
another two parked along the rear. He spotted a door at the far end and began
to work his way there.

“I don’t think anyone’s back here,”
Gideon said.

“We need to work our way to the
front anyway,” Bea added.

When they reached the door, Theo eased
it open. Just beyond was a series of offices. At the end of the hall, he could
see glass doors that opened onto the sales floor. “This is it,” he whispered.
He moved down the hall, ignoring the closed office doors. He knew where the
enemy was and they couldn’t afford to get bogged down searching rooms when they
needed to capture one of the Sitnam.

“Shit,” Bea muttered when the sound
of another shotgun blast reverberated down the hall. “I thought they were out
of ammo?”

Gideon shook his head. “Doesn’t
matter. It won’t stop them. Maybe they’ll even manage to injure one. That’ll
just make our job easier.”

Theo held up a hand, shushing them.
“We’ll go in together, straight to the front and take the lead Sitnam down.
Bea, take the middle. Gideon, on the left.”

Gideon nodded, eyes serious, then
slid his face mask down.

Bea took a deep breath. “Okay.” Her
mask slid down too.

Theo wished he could hug them both,
but now wasn’t the time. “On three,” he said, counting under his breath. As his
mask slid down, he touched the doors, and then they were through, rushing
across the sales floor. He passed a sports car, windshield broken, heading for
the front. The Sitnam just inside the glass front hissed, claws going up. Theo
held up his hands and the weapon activated. He put his fists together, sensing
Bea and Gideon doing the same, and then the alien disintegrated.

They didn’t slow down. He caught a
brief glimpse of the people clustered near the sales desk, eyes wide, but he
was already outside, punching another Sitnam in the face. It went down hard,
and he disintegrated another one. Three more came at them, the black ship
rising in front of them like something out of a nightmare. Bea took down one
and Gideon took care of the others. Theo spun and wrapped his hands around the
neck of the one he’d punched, using the strength in his armor to cut off its
air supply.

Suddenly, Bea went down, hands
outstretched. He whirled, dragging the creature with him, only to find that she’d
disabled another one by disintegrating a small piece of its exoskeleton, low on
the legs. She ducked as it struck at her and then Gideon was there. He took it
down.

Theo had his hands full. The Sitnam
he held began to hit at him, using its claws to try and slice through his
armor. He grunted, arms growing tired. Bea crawled closer and put her palms on
the alien’s legs. With a quiet burst of energy, she disintegrated the Sitnam’s
entire bottom half. It let out a gurgling sound and collapsed.

“Shit!” Theo said, watching its
eyes go dim.

“Don’t worry, we’ve got one alive,”
Gideon said, wrapping a cord around the neck of the one Bea had disabled
earlier.

He must
have grabbed some wire on the way through the garage
, Theo thought,
impressed.

“Anatomy lessons come in handy when
you least expect it,” she said, sliding back her mask. “Cut off the legs and it
can’t run away.”

Theo walked over, looking down at
the Sitnam on the ground. “How many of you are in the ship?” he asked.

It stared at him.

“It probably doesn’t speak English,”
Bea murmured.

It turned its head and looked at
her. “Food. Food that speaks.” Then it spit.

She leaped back. The spittle landed
on the ground and sizzled. “Shit,” Gideon said, holding it a little tighter.
The red wire cut into its throat like a hideous necklace.

“How many on the ship?” Theo asked
again. “You’re going to die anyway. The question is how fast do you want to go?”

It swiveled its head in a way that
reminded Theo of a praying mantis. He glared at it.

“None,” the creature said and
slumped down.

“Why have you come here?” Bea
asked.

It looked at her, then simply said,
“Food.”

Gideon raised his hand. Theo felt a
sympathetic hum through his arm as his partner activated the weapon, and then
the creature disintegrated.

“Well, that was useless,” Bea said,
sounding disgusted. She looked up at the ship, her silver eyes darkening.

Theo agreed. “We need to get out of
here.”

Gideon stood up.

“Oh my God!” a woman called, and
Theo pivoted. She was hurrying out of the dealership.

“Jeannette! No, come back,” a man
called after her.

Theo looked around. Their fight had
carried them to the middle of the parking lot. The woman’s long hair was a
mess, but she didn’t seem injured as she rushed forward. Her pantsuit had seen
better days though. He shuddered. And no one should wear that particular shade
of pink.

“Oh my God, how did you do that?”
she asked, coming to an abrupt halt. She stared at the trio.

“I’d like to know that too,” a man
said, walking up behind her. He held a shotgun. It wasn’t pointed at them,
exactly, but it wasn’t held down, either. He made Theo nervous. The last thing
he wanted was a shotgun blast to the head. He put his hands out, showing his
lack of weapon. From the expression on the man’s face, it didn’t help.

“Theo?”

He turned his head, keeping an eye
on Mr. Shotgun. Another man walked out of the dealership, then began to jog
closer.

“Theo, is that you? And Gideon? My
God, I thought for sure you were dead.

“Is that Arnold?” Gideon asked,
sharing a smile with Theo.

The dispatcher from their station
made his way to them. “Well shit, detectives. You’re the last men I expected to
find here. And wearing some fancy shit armor, too.” He grinned and held out his
hand.

Theo shook his head, stunned. He’d
assumed all the people he and Gideon worked with were dead.

Gideon slid his armor back from his
hand and shook the man’s hand. “Arnold. Damn. You’re alive? What about the rest
of the department?”

The man shook his balding head. “They
didn’t make it.” He glanced at the guy holding the shotgun and frowned. “Put
that down. These two men are cops.”

The man did
not
lower the
gun. “They don’t look like cops.” His wife or girlfriend or whatever she was
tugged at him. He growled at her.

“I left my badge in the car,” Theo said,
irritated. The man’s face darkened, but Theo didn’t give a shit. He turned
slightly and put on his cop face. “What are you doing here, Arnold?”

“Was buying a car with the wife
yesterday,” the man said, waving to a middle-aged woman still in the building.
At his signal, she tentatively began to walk out, glancing apprehensively at
the ship looming over them every other step.

Theo didn’t blame her. The thing
bothered him, too.

“How did you get here? And what the
hell are you wearing?” Arnold asked.

“More importantly, what the fuck
did you do to kill them?” The first man asked, the one with the shotgun. The
woman had moved closer to him, putting a hand on his arm. They wore the same
wedding bands and he sounded like the guy they’d talked to over the radio. Theo
glanced at Gideon, not certain how to explain.

“This isn’t the first planet the
Sitnam have invaded,” Gideon said mildly.