Sullivan Saga 3: Sullivan's Watch (11 page)

The alien gnashed its teeth and pulled its uninjured hand from the wood to swipe at him, but Peter ducked the swing of the claws and used the opportunity to stab at the creature’s mouth again. The knife plunged deeper this time and got stuck. Peter pulled his hand out but not quickly enough to avoid being scraped by the teeth as the alien bit down again.

But with the knife still in its mouth, the act of biting down appeared to drive it even deeper. The thing’s mouth thrashed and twisted, sending a spray of dark blood over Peter.

Peter reached down and pulled at the claws that were still embedded in the wood. They came out, and the alien fell and landed hard at the base of the tree.

Peter looked down. It was still alive but didn’t appear as though it was in any condition to get up, much less make another leap.

Peter walked back into the tree house and picked up one of the blankets. He carefully wiped the alien’s blood off then tossed it into the far corner. He would wait until the creature died then, if it was safe, climb down to retrieve the knife.

He cleared part of the floor of garbage, gathered up the rest of the blankets and pillows and made a bed. He knew he would not be able to sleep, but he could rest his body. The morning might bring more of the creatures or even a lynch mob from the town, out to kill him for what he’d done to the Pope. Either way, he would need his strength.

COMMANDER DAVID PICKETT shook the hand of the woman in front of him.

“Hello, Commander,” she said. “I’m Dr. Chen. Please come in.”

Pickett followed Dr. Chen into her office and sat down in the chair she indicated. She sat across from him, a tablet on her knees.

“Thank you for coming to see me.”

“I was ordered to, Doctor.”

“I know. But you understand why this is important, don’t you?”

“I understand,” Pickett said, raising his voice slightly, “that valuable time is being wasted. I could be in a simulator right now, going over what we know of the alien ships’ capabilities, their weaponry….”

“But if you have a breakdown in the middle of a dogfight, what good will all that preparation have done you? Consider this just another way of preparing, Commander.”

Pickett took a deep breath. “Look, I know things have to be done by the book, even at a time like this. I know there are other pilots running simulations, people who can take my place if need be. But I have to be out there, Dr. Chen. We have a lot of inexperienced pilots who’ve been reassigned to the
Vigilant
. They need me to direct the attack. Admiral Long wants….”

“Admiral Long wants you back, yes. But he’s also instructed me to make sure you won’t be a liability. You’re not here just because of protocol. The admiral spoke to me directly.”

“I won’t be a liability.”

“Look, all we’re going to do is talk for a bit, Commander Pickett. I just want you to tell me about the battle, about your feelings. That’s all.”

Pickett nodded. “Where do you want me to start?”

“The battle. You were hit and ejected fairly early, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“But your report says you watched the whole thing unfold as you awaited rescue. You saw what happened when the alien ship exploded.”

Pickett nodded.

“All you comrades, your friends….”

“Yes. I saw them die. Saw their fighters consumed by the exploding alien ship.”

“Have you properly dealt with your feelings?”

“I’ve… I haven’t thought about it much. I’ve been focusing on preparing for the next fight.”

“What do you feel right now, though? Do you feel their loss?”

“Of course. But… I’m kind of numb, too.”

“That’s certainly understandable. How are you sleeping?”

“Fine.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I’ve never had trouble sleeping.”

“And do you feel rested when you get up in the morning?”

“Sure.”

“And you’re eating?”

“Yes, Doctor, I’m sleeping and eating, I’m having regular bowel movements. I’m all right. Don’t you understand that there isn’t time for me to think about myself right now? What happens to me is irrelevant as long as the Earth is safe. I can’t go around feeling sorry for myself or the people who died. I don’t have time for it. I don’t have time to cry.” Pickett put his head in his hands. “Can we cut a deal?”

“What’s that?”

“When this is all over, if I come out of it alive, I’ll come see you. I’ll work through everything the way you think I need to, I’ll come every week, twice a week even. I know you’re concerned about my mental stability. I… I don’t deny that I’m going to have to deal with this properly at some point. But
please
, not now. Let me do what needs to be done, Dr. Chen. We don’t know when the aliens will return. Every hour counts, every minute counts. An extra hour in the simulator could give me some crucial insight into their tactics. And if, before they attack again, I reach a point where I don’t think I can learn anything more, then I’ll come see you. But not
now
.”

Pickett looked up. Dr. Chen was tapping something onto the tablet. “Are you reporting that I’m combative? Uncooperative?”

Chen looked up. “No, Commander. I’m clearing you to return to duty. But you
will
come see me when it’s all over, yes?”

Pickett nodded. “Yes. Thank you, Doctor. I promise I’ll come see you. I… you have no idea how much I appreciate this.”

Chen stood and held out her hand. Pickett shook it.

“Commander,” she said. “When the next attack comes… when you get out there in your fighter… I’ll be praying for you.”

“Thanks, but I’m not really religious.”

“That’s okay. I’ll be praying all the same.”

Pickett nodded. “Thank you, Doctor.” He turned to leave but paused. “Who knows? Maybe someone will be listening.”

PICKETT RETURNED TO the training area aboard the
Vigilant
and spotted Lieutenant Kern observing a three-dimensional display. It showed the cockpit and controls of one of their fighters.

“Who’s that?” Pickett asked.

Kern tapped on the console below the display, and the image froze. “This is the footage from Lowe’s fighter. During the battle, sensors from the F-66s as well as from ground stations were disrupted somehow. No one could really see what was happening except in short bursts of data.”

“So we think the aliens had some sort of scrambling technology?”

“Yes. You’ve looked over the reports. It was absolute chaos out there because the ship’s sensors were down. Back here, they could hear what was going on, but they couldn’t see it on their displays, couldn’t direct our movements. Fortunately, they think they can solve that problem. The ship is having its sensors reprogrammed. That should make them immune to the particular type of interference the aliens were sending out.”

Pickett nodded. “So what am I looking at from Lowe’s camera?” he asked.

“Lowe was the one who took the initiative to make a final run at the main alien ship. During a lull he saw that the alien fighters had left this big gap and were trying to lead our fighters away from that area.”

“Why would they do that?”

Kern pulled up an overview of the battle. “This has been constructed by the footage from all our fighters matched up with the sporadic information the sensors from the
Vigilant
and the other ships did get. Watch this.”

As the recreation played, Pickett saw the alien ship slowly turn to face the
Vigilant
. At that same moment, the alien fighters cleared a path directly between the alien ship and the
Vigilant
.

“They were preparing to fire on the
Vigilant
,” Pickett said.

“Exactly.”

“Their missiles were easily destroyed by our defenses, so….”

“They were preparing to use their big weapon. Probably the weapon they used to destroy the Mars colonies.”

“Did Lowe or anyone else get a close-up look at the front of that ship?”

Kern nodded and tapped on the console. “Look at this. The missiles from the enemy ship came out in a cluster then spread out as they cleared the front of the ship. Here’s a shot of the open missile hatch one of our fighters caught.”

Pickett watched as the hatch opened, splitting into three triangular sections and sliding back into the hull around the hatch. Inside was a ring of holes that Pickett assumed were the missile tubes. They surrounded a much larger hole. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing.

Kern smiled. ”That’s what destroyed them in the end.”

Pickett frowned.

“Here’s the footage of Lowe’s final approach,” Kern said. “We couldn’t get anything through that ship’s shielding, right? Well, Lowe organized whoever was left into one final run at the shields. Their first salvo hit the shields and didn’t seem to cause any damage. But just before they made their final run, the alien ship made another small adjustment, as the
Vigilant
had moved slightly. It was then that our ships got through.”

“Their shield has to be down before they can fire that other weapon,” Pickett said.

“Possibly.”

“So we can destroy their missiles before they reach our ships… our fighters can more or less match theirs in a fair fight… but this… this is something they knew we couldn’t defend against. They knew our ships don’t have any type of shielding like theirs.”

“And when they dropped their shield to fire, our boys got in. Whatever technology they’re using appears to be highly volatile. It went up instantly when we hit that spot right there in the middle.”

“So if their shield can stop incoming physical objects like missiles, how does it let their missiles and fighters out?”

“Our researchers think that the shield is an energy field. One popular hypothesis is that a signal from their fighters and missiles very briefly weakens this energy field in a local area, letting them through. But there’s another theory that the shield goes down completely, for just a split second, to let a sorties of missiles or fighter out. Our boys got lucky, managed to get in close when the shield was down, right into the mouth of the beast, as it were.”

Pickett took a few moments to process the information. “Either way—if they completely lowered their shield or just weakened the field to let their ships and missiles out—we may have a way in.”

“Yes. People are working on trying to unscramble the data from the fight. They’re looking for any trace of a signal used to get their fighters through the shield. If it exists, our best chance is to find it and try to replicate it.”

“Good. It’d be better if the latter theory is correct, and the entire shield goes down.”

“With luck, they’ll know for certain one way or the other before we have to fight them again.”

Pickett stood. “But knowing that won’t do us any good if we can’t get close enough to hit them. I’m going to get into a simulator, work on studying the movement of their fighters.”

“I’ll join you. I didn’t get much of a chance to fight them before I had to eject, so I have some catching up to do.”

THE STREET LOOKED deserted, but Jefferson Ives knew better. He could see recent evidence of the aliens’ activity; there were half a dozen bodies around the entrance to an apartment building. Two of them were military.

Ives took a few moments to survey the scene and determined that the military had been in the process of evacuating people from the building when they were attacked. For Ives, this was good news. It meant that evacuations had begun in his area. If he could find the evacuation teams and direct them to his building, where he’d been leading the stragglers he’d found, he could leave that job to them and try to get to the Bureau office to see what he could do there.

He hadn’t heard from Director Blanco since the day before. This wasn’t a surprise, considering the damage done to the communications satellites during the battle. Plus, Ives was sure Blanco had more important things to worry about than a single agent trying to round up evacuees.

A noise caught his attention, and Ives looked back at the building with the bodies. Someone was still inside. He looked at the bandage on his shoulder to make sure the wound wasn’t actively bleeding then checked the charges in his energy pistol. He was down to three charges—just enough to let him make a running retreat if he needed to.

Ives crept up beside the building and listened as the sound of movement continued. The next thing he heard was the unmistakable sound of an energy weapon discharging. He could tell by the pitch that it was an alien weapon—it was higher than any energy weapons they had on Earth.

He pressed himself against the side of the building as the sound of movement got louder. He aimed his pistol at the doorway and began backing away. He decided could afford to fire one shot before retreating around the corner onto the next street.

Ives saw the long barrel of an alien energy weapon emerge from the doorway. He put his finger on his gun’s trigger but removed it a second later as a leg swung out from the doorframe. It wasn’t alien.

“Hey!” he said. He put up his hands as the barrel of the energy weapon was moved toward him. A woman in her mid-thirties looked over the barrel at him and lowered the gun.

“My name is Jeff Ives. I’m a Bureau agent,” Ives said. “I’m trying to organize an evacuation.”

The woman nodded. “Gail West. There’s a lot of us in here.”

Ives stepped toward the building entrance and followed her inside. “What happened?”

“We were being evacuated when the aliens attacked. The evacuation ship just took off. Left us all here. Even left two of their own out there to die.”

“I saw.” He glanced at the alien weapon. “How’d you get that?”

“The aliens came in after us when the evacuation ship left. We have a lot of dead in here. Still, there were only three of them. We managed to rush them, knock them down, take their weapons.”

“Did you kill them?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Listen, I have a lot of people in a building a few blocks over. How many of you are there?”

Gail thought for a moment. “I’d say about thirty.”