Second Wave -- 36

Chapter 36

Once again, Kasm insisted on using his people as the spear-point of our attack. I understood his reasons but didn’t feel it was fair that we humans were taking a secondary role in the counter-attack on Earth. Nevertheless, I ended by deferring to him. His people were excellent fighters, and with the addition of swords to their imposing natural weapons, I was forced to concede that they were the most logical choice. I resolved to come through immediately after their first group. If they ran into any trouble facing armed Pugs, I wanted to be there with my anti-matter weapons to help out.

Frank got me aside and essentially said the same thing, “Dec, you and I’d better go through right after those cats. We can shoot, and they’re likely to get pinned down by some of those Pug things. If we go through in the second transporter load, we can be in a position to help out.” He placed his big hand on my shoulder and added, “Promise me that you won’t let Erin go through until we’ve got the buggers laid out. She’ll want to get in the fight and I don’t want to have to be looking out for her while I’m concentrating on killing Pugs. I just couldn’t take it if she got hurt.”

“I agree,” I said. I was a little surprised at the depth of emotion he showed. I hadn’t realized that he cared about his charge so much. “I’m going to tell her that she should hang back with Frazzle and Red. They will need some human advice if anything happens to us. She’ll have to get them to try and destroy the Pug-bears’ settlements in the system. If we lose, I want her to drop a KEW on Estes. If it kills everyone on the front range, it will be bad, but we’ve got to get rid of the Pug-bears for the sake of humanity.”

“What about your wife?” he asked.

“We live in Grand Lake, over the Divide. If the KEW were aimed precisely, it might not do too much damage over there... at least, that’s what I hope,” I concluded lamely. I looked away from him. I found it difficult to think about the damage that could be done with just one sizable rock. If they were still alive and in Grand Lake, my family might easily be vaporized.

In less time than I’d planned, the Sim-tigers had arranged their first transporter group and were in the machine and ready to go. Frazzle had shown us which of the control buttons activated the link to Estes. Kasm looked out at me, winked, and pressed the button with his hand-arm. There was a flicker, and they were gone.

Immediately, the second complement of his people moved into the chamber. Frank and I shoved our way into the room, too. Making sure that all were safely within the door frame (the chamber was an open one with no actual door), I then activated the system.

We came out in the Stanley Hotel. The second-floor hallway we exited into was empty, save for the bodies of several Pugs. Battle sounds were coming from the ground floor, and we wasted no time in making our way downwards.

We came down the broad staircase and emerged into the lobby. It was a mess. Dead Pugs everywhere and, to my pleasure, not a sign of even an injured Sim-tiger. The fight had moved out of the building and was now going on in the front. Our tiger friends dashed out the front entrance and rapidly ran down the staircase to the front lawn. The first group of our allies were just now chasing a batch of Pugs across the lawn towards a stand of spruce trees. The Pugs were running at a surprising rate, but the Sim-tigers were much faster. When one of them caught up to a Pug, it would either slash with a sword or rake a paw-full of claws across the unfortunate alien. I remembered that the Pugs were unable to live in our atmosphere without their skin-tight body suits and respirators. The slashes cut through their suits, even though they were tough enough to withstand small caliber bullets, and the Pugs immediately dropped, convulsing as whatever it was in the air began to dissolve their flesh.

Just as the front of the Pug group entered the grove of trees, four huge Pug-bears came tearing around the right edge of the grove. They collided with two of the Sim-tigers, who had not seen them coming, and the cat-like creatures were bowled off their feet. The Pug-bears piled on their fallen enemies and began to rip at them with their full complement of deadly claws. The other Sim-tigers jumped into the fray, and both sets of aliens made a confused, heaving mass for a few seconds. One of the Pug-bears was actually thrown several yards out of the pile, landing on its back. It was missing a couple of legs on one side and seemed to be having a hard time regaining its feet. It finally started to get up, but by then, I’d gotten my anti-matter rifle arranged and dissolved half of its carapace.

The mass of fighters heaved and then broke into clumps, rapidly resolving into two separate struggles. The last two Pug-bears started to run but were quickly halted. One was faced with three Sim-tigers, while the other was pulled down by a Sim-tiger that had somehow leaped onto its back. Two of the late arriving Sim-tigers had caught up and were circling around the confused Pug-bear, looking for an opening. It was slashing wildly with its claws, as was the other Pug-bear. This was where the swords came into their own. The tigers simply slashed the legs off whenever they were presented with an opportunity. It didn’t take long for them to immobilize both Pug-bears. Then, they carefully flipped each individual over and severed the vulnerable nerve plexus on their bottom side.

Frank and I were still running towards the group but had only covered half the distance by that point. The fight had gone down fast. One lone Pug came racing around the left side of the trees, pursued by the only Sim-tiger that had continued chasing Pugs when the Pug-bears attacked. He was shortly pulled down and dispatched.

We arrived at the scene of the carnage and were met by Kasm. He was extremely angry and worked up by the fight. The two Sim-tigers who had lost their feet due to the Pug-bears’ charge were both dead, and he didn’t like it one bit. He was so angry that his fur coat was standing out, bristling in all directions, and I thought for a moment that he was going to jump at us. When his eyes met mine, he calmed noticeably and said, “You’re late! We killed these, so show us where the rest of them are hiding. Our blood demands vengeance!”

“We’ll find them soon enough,” I spoke aloud. “We’ll have to do some scouting to see what’s up around here. I’ve got no idea how many of them have landed, and they could be spread out over a large area by now. Keep alert! We don’t want them shooting at us from a distance. An ambush could be very bad.”

We’d defeated the first group of them that we’d encountered, but it had been months since we’d left Earth, and there really was no knowing how many had been transported down during that time. The rest of the Sim-tigers arrived, and we spread out to search the hotel grounds and the rest of the town. There were a few Pugs that showed up, walking down the road from the Park, but they didn’t last long. The Sim-tigers weren’t in a mind to take captives.

The question of where the invaders were was answered surprisingly by a human. The Sim-tiger scouts came herding a tired-looking man up the street from the southern edge of town. Something about him looked familiar; his stride seemed like one I’d seen before, or maybe it was the way he carried himself. I couldn’t place it, though, until he got close enough for me to see his face. It was Joe! The last time I’d seen him, he was with my friend Rudy and the Shoshone leader, Freddy Stormbreaker. They’d been the final survivors of our strike team that had disrupted the Pug-bears’ invasion a little over four years ago. We’d separated; they’d gone off on what I thought was a wild goose chase to Miami, and Liz and I had gone over the mountains to Grand Lake.

As if a key were turned, a large chunk of my locked mind opened, and memories of that time flooded out. I remembered the desperate fighting we’d gone through and the despair that we’d felt when the Pug-bears had exploded the EMP that had driven our entire civilization back to a seventeenth-century lifestyle. I’d been sorry that Rudy had chosen to head to Miami. He’d sworn an oath that required him to go there. It might not have been binding on other people, but Rudy was always a man that could be relied upon to keep his word. I never thought I’d see any of the three again.

“Joe! I can’t believe it’s you after all this time!” I enthused. “What happened to Rudy and Stormbreaker? And what have you been doing with yourself? You look like you’ve been ridden hard and put away wet!”

He smiled tiredly as he answered, “I’ve been fighting alongside the Denver group, trying to keep the Pug-bears out of our territory. Rudy is down in Denver with the Eastern Slope Warlord’s advisers, and Stormbreaker is probably over in Grand Lake with his wife, looking for you right about now. If you’re going to play twenty questions, I’ve got some for you too, like where’d you come from and what are these green-striped cat things? That’s just a starter, so don’t think I’m going to quit there!”

He was the same old Joe! Mildly sarcastic and a little prickly when he was unsure of the strategic situation.

“Listen, these are Sim-tigers, and they’re our best friends right now! They can kill Pug-bears so fast it makes it seem like child’s play! They hate the Pug-bears and have agreed to help us in return for our help in making sure the nasty things are never a threat again. We’re allies, and I’ve got another set of alien allies, but they’re not fighters. They’re flying the spaceships right now.”

“That’s nice – Whoa! – What spaceships?” he stuttered.

“Oh, just the two Faster-Than-Light ships that I’ve captured from the Pug-bears, that’s all.” I was having fun looking at his expression. “But, really, Joe, we need tactical information desperately right now! Where are all of the Pugs and Pug-bears, and what strength do they have? We intend to wipe them off the Earth if we can, but we can’t find any more than the few that were here.”

“Don’t fret about it, Dec. The main force of Pugs, along with a number of Pug-bears, is holed up in downtown Boulder. It’s been deserted for some months since the aliens invaded again, but we, I mean the Warlord’s army, have mostly kept them contained in the center of town. We control the south side of Boulder, up to just past the University, and the Pugs have set up their front line along the Pearl Street Mall. We’ve been sniping back and forth for weeks. The Pug-bears don’t seem to be doing much raiding or much of anything else. We know there are a few with the Pugs, but we haven’t seen them for quite a while.”

“So, what are you doing up here? Your main force is stopped in South Boulder, you say. So how did you get all the way to Estes?” I thought I knew, but I needed him to tell me.

“We sent out a number of scouts to see how far the invaders had come, whether they had spread out north of Boulder, and if there were a lot more in Estes. I don’t know where the other guys are, hope they haven’t been caught, but I’ve been up on the Peak-to-Peak highway, not on the highway, you understand, but in the general area. I finally worked my way down through Allenspark a couple of days ago, and I was poking around the outskirts of Estes Park, looking for any aliens and trying to keep a low profile. Apparently, I wasn’t as successful as I’d hoped cause a couple of your stripey friends jumped out of some bushes, grabbed my gun, and, well, here I am!”

“Are there any Pugs or Pug-bears between us and Boulder now?” I asked.

“Dec, I’ve been up in the hills, as I said, and I can’t say for sure, but I think they are all located down in Boulder. There could be some in Lyons, but I don’t know any more than that. What are you going to do?”

“I think I’ve got a plan,” I replied. I’d been working it out as we spoke. It was improvising, but we didn’t have a very large force, and I didn’t think fighting a pitched battle against Pugs, possibly armed with advanced weapons, was a good idea.

I got Kasm’s attention and started to explain, “Here’s what we can do. We’ll head down the front range towards Boulder. It’ll take us a couple of days to get close. The Sim-tigers will serve as a scouting force and will eliminate any small groups of enemy as they go. We’ll be right behind with our anti-matter guns – Uh, eraser-guns, Joe.” He’d looked puzzled, but my use of the old name that we’d originally used made him smile and nod.

“Then, assuming that we can get the Eastern Slope Warlord to cooperate, we can squeeze the Pug forces in towards the center of Boulder. If that works, I’ve got a nasty surprise for them. One of our spaceships carries a large anti-matter cannon, and I’ll get Erin to take out the center of their forces. I think she can do that in a single pass in low orbit. That should soften them up enough for us to make a coordinated attack from both sides and hopefully wipe them out.”

I was proud of myself for thinking of this, but there were a lot of “what-ifs” involved. The Pug forces could evacuate up Boulder Canyon or simply retreat into the foothills, or even move out to the east in the direction of Longmont. I was hoping that the Warlord had enough people to blockade the other ways out of the town.

Joe nodded, “I think we can make that happen. If I can get a little rest, I’ll be ready to head back to the Warlord’s area, and I’ll take a message from you. I think I can get Rudy to advise him to do what you want. He is awful bull-headed, though. I’m also tired, and it’s a long way back down there from here, and there’s a lot of rough terrain to cover, too.”

“I’m sure that I can help with that also,” I smiled, bragging. By now, Frazzle would be partway to Earth orbit, and he could fly the shuttle down, pick us up, and we could fly to Denver.

Joe just shook his head as I explained. He did look very tired, but I wasn’t through with him. “So, did you get to Miami?” I asked.

He sighed, “It’s a long story, but to make it short, yes. At least Rudy and I got there. Stormbreaker stopped at a small town in Oklahoma. He took up with a Cherokee woman, and they ended up getting married. They came back with us when we came back through from Miami.”

“OK, but what happened in Miami? Did Rudy find Mick’s sister?” I wanted to hear the whole story, but it was obvious that he was reluctant to relive it.

“We had a hell of a time getting down there. I don’t want to even think about the things we had to do on the way down or back, and it wasn’t worth it! Mick hadn’t told us that his sister had a pacemaker. She had some kind of congenital heart defect, and they’d installed a pacemaker – lousy things! She died within an hour of the EMP going off – her friend told us. She suffered for an hour and then just died. The EMP destroyed the pacemaker or reprogrammed it or something. What a waste!” He shook his head regretfully. “It took us six months to get down there, and we stayed there for a couple of years, but things didn’t work out very well. Too much disease, not enough food, and too many gangs. We finally decided to come back.”

He continued, “I don’t mind telling you that I thought about it quite a bit before we started back. There really were some nice-looking women in the Miami area, but the local gangs were bad, too. The trip back was difficult. It took nearly a year. Walking when we had no cars, stealing cars and gas when we could. Food was hard to come by, and we had to work at avoiding local militias and scavengers. We hid out a lot, just waiting for some group or other to move out of our way. As it was, we were ambushed three times before we picked Stormbreaker and his woman back up. Rudy got shot up bad in the last one. His left arm will never be the same; blew out a big chunk of his muscle. Anyway, I’m glad I decided to come back with him. One man alone would never have made it. If we hadn’t met up with Stormbreaker and his woman, I don’t know what we would have done. Rudy was hurt and couldn’t fight well, so having two more with us really helped. We talked about you a lot. We figured that you’d most likely be in some serious trouble somehow. It does seem to follow you around.” He laughed, then continued, “Anyway, when we finally got into Denver, we checked around and decided to hook up with the Warlord’s group. They’re good people, mostly. They were fighting the Pugs and needed our knowledge, especially when the Pug-bears started showing up.”

He paused and looked around as if to reassure himself that our location was secure, then he continued, “Sorry, I just have to keep checking for ambushes. I’ve been in the woods for so long now that I’m nervous in a town like this. I was up in the Allenspark area; there were no Pugs there, but a couple of Pug-bears had been through. There are a few folks that live around there, and they’re plenty scared. I figured that I could sneak by Estes and hike over the pass to see if I’d get lucky and find you. It wasn’t part of my job – Rudy had just asked me to scout out the Pugs, but it felt like I was close, so I decided to try, then your stripey alien friends caught me. I thought I was done for. They almost make the Pug-bears seem cuddly. Where did they come from, anyway?”

Joe had never been one to talk so vociferously before. I guessed that he had been by himself for a long time as he scouted, or maybe it was just relief at finding me and realizing that the Sim-tigers were friends.

“They fought the Pug-bears’ invasion of their planet to a stand-still. When I found that out, I wanted to have them as friends, and, as you can see, it worked out nicely.” I waved my hand vaguely at the small group of Sim-tigers that were resting nearby. “Now, I’m sorry to make you walk some more, but let’s go see about getting a ride down to Denver.”

It took us some time to hike back to the Stanley, but only a few minutes to transport up to Europa, then jump from there to the FTL. It was just Joe, Whistle, and me since Frank stayed in Estes to help back up Kasm’s group as they started south. We needed him there to coordinate the attack if nothing else.

We got to the ship, and I immediately took Joe to my cabin and got him settled in. I think he was asleep before I exited the room. I walked down the hall, grabbed some food, and then headed for the bridge. Frazzle leaped out of his chair when I came in. Red shyly hung back, but he dashed over to me and stretched his short arms around my middle in a hug.

“Dec, I glad you came back. We been worried about you. De Pug-bears are bad fighters, and I’m glad you’re OK!” Frazzle was practically unintelligible; he was speaking so fast.

“I’m glad you were worried about me, but I’m just fine. We’ve cleared out the enemy from around the transporters, and we know where most of them are located. I’m going to need to fly down to a place on the other side of them and organize a force to fight them. The Sim-tigers will drive them into that force and then –” I was interrupted by another hug from the other side. As I glanced down at the slim arms that crossed my chest, I said, “Hello, Erin.”

She loosened up her hug but didn’t let go, so I turned to face her, gently disengaging her arms as I did, “Glad to see you. We’re fine, and we’ve got the Pugs just where we want them. They’re holed up in Boulder. I’m going to set up a pincers attack and compress them into the Pearl Street Mall area and then signal to you. I’ll need you to make a pass across the area with the bow cannon. If we’re lucky, that will take care of much of the problem.”

She acerbically replied, “What a greeting. Here I was worried about you! You’re all business, aren’t you?” She paused and showed me that she had been listening. “What if we aren’t lucky? I could miss and hit your forces or you, you bone-head! I couldn’t take it if that happened!”

“Don’t worry, we’ll be observing from the shuttle-craft, and I’ll make sure I’m out of range when you fire,” I reassured her.

“OK, but I’ll need specific coordinates for the shot. Will Frazzle set up the fire-control computer for us?” She was thinking ahead.

Frazzle wasn’t too happy about it, but by now, he’d lost a lot of the inability to consider violence that he’d originally had, and he agreed to make sure that the shot struck where I wanted it. It was up to me to send him the exact location, though.

A few hours later, Joe and I were located in the shuttle. Whistle was piloting, and we were trying to make the best of the small space. It was a tight fit for the three of us, but we managed to survive until we landed near Mile-High Stadium. That was the site of the Warlord’s main headquarters. I’d pointed out the Pearl Street Mall as we flew over Boulder, and Whistle had recorded the specifics of the location for later transmission to Frazzle.

Joe and I climbed out of the shuttle to face a large group of bizarrely-dressed fighters. They favored buckskin, and several fur caps of various sorts graced their heads. The most important thing was they were armed with a large number of well-used firearms that were all pointing at us. Joe glanced at me and whispered, “I don’t know these guys, so – .”

I looked at the holes in the ends of the muzzles and smiled my most charming smile.