Critical Dawn (22 page)

He looked up at Gregor with a forlorn expression and opened his mouth.

A second later, the bike smashed into the trees at high speed. Marek had no chance.

“Take us down. Now,” Gregor shouted.

Layla swung the bike left and right. She must’ve been searching for a clearing. Anything to get them out of the sky.

The croatoan riders hovered over Marek’s crash site, giving them a moment’s respite.

A reservoir appeared below. Layla dropped altitude. Ben followed suit. Flying yards above water, they blasted two white trails along its glistening, dark brown surface.

Ben looked across, his face full of panic. He pointed to the side of his own bike. Through the roaring wind, Gregor detected an inconsistent tone. Ben headed for the edge, toward a building at the head of the dam.

Gregor carefully watched behind, searching for the arrival of the croatoans over the trees. He grabbed Layla’s shoulder. “They’re not here yet. Do it now.”

Layla decreased their speed to a cruise and reached a grassy area to the right of the building. The bike reared slightly as she twisted the left grip, bringing it to a hover. She pulled back the handlebars. The bike dropped five yards and thumped against the ground.

Ben gently approached, his engine spluttering. Before he reached dry land, the bike nose dipped and entered the reservoir, spraying a thick sheet of water. He was thrown over the handlebars and splashed in, head first.

Ben quickly surfaced and flapped his arms around. “I can’t swim. Help.”

He was ten yards away.

“Hold this a minute,” Gregor said. He passed Layla the rifle, pulled off his jumper, and waded in, pushing off to a swim after a few yards. He grabbed Ben under one arm and started dragging him to the side.

“They’re here,” Layla said. “Hurry up.”

Gregor looked into the distance. Three bikes roared over the trees, advancing along the reservoir, heading directly for them. He staggered out of the water, dragging Ben by his side. “Head for the building.”

Layla ran for a faded red wooden door of an industrial-looking building, Ben and Gregor followed. She jumped over a partially collapsed metal fence and walked through a patch of waist-high weeds. She reached out and rattled the handle. “It’s locked.”

“Out of the way,” Gregor said.

He carried on his forward momentum, roared, and slammed the bottom of his boot against the door’s midsection. It crashed open, revealing dark space inside.

A croatoan hummed into view, stopping at a hover fifty feet away, thirty feet in the air.

Gregor aimed and fired. His round sparked against the side of the bike.

A return shot thumped against the building yards away. Dust puffed from the stone wall.

“In. Now,” Gregor said. He quickly backed away, keeping the bike in his sights, slamming the door closed.

“All three of you. Stay exactly where you are,” an unrecognizable voice said through the shadows.

Layla held up her hands. “We’re being attacked. Haven’t you seen what’s just happened?”

A tall, thin man wearing a hunting jacket stepped out of the shadows holding a crossbow. He aimed at Gregor’s face. “I saw you three arrive on alien machines. You’ve brought them to us.”

Denver fired his rifle, hitting the alien’s hand, knocking its own weapon to the ground. The alien leaned down to reach for the gun, but Denver chambered another round and fired. This time, the bullet struck its torso, but like before, it seemed to activate some kind of temporal shifting ability.

While the alien phased in and out of vision, seemingly making it invulnerable to Denver’s rifle, Charlie dashed out into the road and grabbed Maria, who stood there shell-shocked, her eyes already haunted by seeing Ethan vaporized.

“You go,” Denver said. “I’ll keep this fucker locked down while you get Maria somewhere safe. I’ll meet you back at Quaternary.”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Charlie said from across the street. “We don’t know what the hell this thing is or can do. You understand me, boy? Get your ass to safety ASAP.”

“I got it, now go.”

The alien’s form flickered, phasing through the visual spectrum. While it was doing this, it moved back to the craft. Denver reloaded his rifle and fired again. As he’d thought, the bullet went right through the alien and struck the metal surface of the craft.

Blue light continued to spill out of the doorway that acted as a ramp from the central triangular section of the craft. Denver looked over to see his dad and Maria head for the shadows of a half-collapsed hotel. They’d just hit the side when the alien spun to face them. It brought out a long tube, placing it on its shoulder. A rocket with more of that blue energy firing behind it shot out, striking the side of the decrepit hotel.

With a blast that made Denver’s ears pop, the remaining rubble of the structure collapsed in a huge cloud of smoke and debris. The single shot leveled the entire building. Denver’s heart seemed to stop as he waited for movement.

Come on, where are you?

He considered going over there, but the alien had dropped the tube and regained its square-barreled rifle. It walked down the street, firing at Denver’s position, each round booming like a cannon as the sound reverberated around the remaining buildings.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Maria wave at him. His dad dragged her away. “Go,” his dad shouted. “Get out of there, Den. Don’t fight it, just run; go back through the forest’s edge.”

Denver nodded and waved his hand to urge them to get out of there before the alien saw them. Another round flew just over his head, the heat scorching his crown. That got his heart pumping again and the adrenaline flowing.

He fired back at the alien, making the beast stop in the street and kneel behind a burned-out taxi, its chassis mostly rust. Through the windows, Denver saw the alien attend to its gun, probably reloading. It was no more than twenty feet away now. Looking to his left, Denver spotted a narrow alley with a low wall at the end.

Taking the opportunity, he dashed out of cover and dived into the alley. The expected explosion of the alien’s gun didn’t come. This didn’t make him feel any better. It made him feel like prey to an advanced and highly capable hunter.

He sprinted down the alley, holding the rifle close to his chest. He clambered over the wall, slipping where the smooth vines had broken through. Hitting the ground hard on his side, he gritted his teeth until the initial pain in his side dissipated. He stood and continued to sprint, taking just a quick glance behind him. As he reached the end of the alley and made to turn right out into a street that looked like the carbon copy of the one he’d just come from, he caught sight of the alien’s long, agile legs.

Holding the rifle with one hand now and using it like a relay baton, he sprinted down the length of the street, dodging in and out of cars, piles of rubble, and fallen buildings. Each time he passed an alley, he looked down it to assess his position. When he came to the fourth one, he ducked inside and made his way to the end, heading back to the first street, doubling back on himself.

If the alien was tracking him, at least he’d be getting some distance and putting obstacles between them. When he came to the end of the alley, he saw the alien craft a few feet back down the street.

Waiting for a moment with his back against what used to be a bank with its expensive marble wall covering, half of which was now charred with signs of war, Denver poked his head around the corner to look back down the alley. When he saw no signs of movement, he stepped out behind the alien’s ship, kneeling in its shadow. He looked out beneath its cone-shaped nose that was a few feet off the ground.

The alien had returned to the shadow of the car. It appeared to be communicating with someone. Its sharp, turtle-like snout moved up and down in erratic movements. It was definitely croatoan but looked like some kind of genetically-enhanced version. Way bigger, stronger, faster. And certainly better equipped.

While the alien’s attention was elsewhere, Denver crept around the front of the craft and walked up the ramp, stepping inside. The atmosphere made him choke as though it was filled with a noxious dry ice. He pulled his shirt over his mouth to help filter the air.

The walls inside were white. To the left was the cockpit section with a single seat in front of a curved glass touch-surface. There was a discernible hum coming from the center of the craft. The whole thing was no more than about thirty feet long and ten wide.

What caught Denver’s attention though was the cabin to the right. On two surfaces of the walls were racks holding what clearly looked like munitions. He reached out and touched a set of three disc-shaped items. They looked like mines. He lifted them off the rack and placed them in his backpack. Not wanting to spend any longer than necessary, he turned to leave, but something on the lower rack caught his attention: A rifle like the one the alien wielded.

He looked at his own rifle, then the alien one. It was a tough choice. He’d owned his for years, but it was starting to show signs of wear and tear, and he was running out of ammo. He’d have to make some more, but right now, he needed something to fight this hunter.

The alien rifle was longer by far, but the tubular barrel was vented and made of some extremely lightweight material. He placed his rifle on the rack and lifted the alien weapon. It felt good in his hands and weighed less than half of the old Remington.

“Fuck yes,” Denver whispered. “You’re coming with me.”

He took the alien rifle and the three black boxes next to it, which he assumed to be ammo. They too were extremely light and fit snugly into the webbing around his pack.

Design-wise, the gun wasn’t a million miles away from human weaponry, but then he guessed that firing a projectile through a barrel only had so many designs. The stock was large, designed for the hunter’s torso, but it still fit snugly in the crook of Denver’s shoulder. The sights were electronic. A slider on the side adjusted the magnification.

The gun had a button above the trigger. When Denver pressed it, the gun hummed, and a blue light flashed on the two-inch-square sight window, which seemed to be the weapon’s general feedback mechanism.

Something within the rifle whirred, and the trigger moved forward a hair. A metallic click coming from the main body of the gun told him that it was loaded. The blue light faded away, and a green dot appeared in the middle of the screen.

He ducked his head outside for a moment, confirmed the alien still had its back to the craft. Heading back inside, he had an idea.

He followed the vibrations of the humming through the ship, going past the weapon’s rack into what he guessed was the engine compartment. A four-foot high cylinder stood within a vat of blue gel-like substance. A pink tinge came from the perimeter, reminding him of the pink circles on the underside of the shuttles.

It must be the engine; there was nothing else in the ship. Not wanting this fuck-bag to have the luxury of transport, Denver took one of the mine-like devices from his pack and inspected it.

Like all croatoan tech he’d come into contact with over the years, it was the pinnacle of simple, efficient design. If they were to design computers, they would have invented Apple machines, he thought, having seen them back at Mike’s basement.

The mine had just a single mechanism. The same small screen as the rifle’s sights, upon which was a single icon. Denver placed the disc on the top of the cylinder. One had to experiment with these kinds of things if they were to understand what the damned aliens were capable of.

His lungs were starting to protest about the poor air quality, and from outside, he heard the alien shooting his rifle again. When the rounds didn’t hit near the craft, he realized it must have spotted Maria and his dad.

“Fuck it,” Denver said, pressing the icon on the mine. It flashed blue, then pink, then started to pulse. He turned and dashed down through the corridor of the ship, carrying the alien rifle with him.

He stumbled out and rolled down the ramp before scrambling to his feet and sprinting for the alley. As he did, he shouted at the alien, who was leaning against the hood of the old car, his rifle supported out in front of him.

“Hey, fucker, over here!”

The alien turned his head and they locked eyes. Denver stopped just inside the alley and held out the alien’s own weapon. “Look what I found. You want it? Come get it?”

As soon as Denver ducked back inside the dark coolness of the alley, the air took on a strange feel as though it suddenly filled with static. Then the explosion came, cutting short as the craft’s hull muffled the sound, but blue and black smoke billowed out of the open door.

The alien roared, grabbed its weapon, and sprinted down the street toward Denver. But then it stopped halfway as Denver’s dad stepped out from behind a building and fired two shots at the back of the alien hunter. Both missed narrowly, striking the ground at its feet. It spun round and seemed to be undecided on what to do. Apparently it decided Charlie was more of a threat, and instead of firing its rifle, raced after him.

“Dad, go!” Denver screamed.

“Get to the warehouse,” his dad shouted back. “You have to get the part, you understand? Forget about us, the part is all that’s important.”

And then he was off, darting into the shadows, his root-infused muscles not making it easy for the alien hunter. Denver was left there on his own, the alien craft destroyed, or at least temporarily broken, and the hunter on his dad’s trail. And of course there was Maria. Could he leave them? What if the hunter caught them? Despite his feelings, he knew his dad was right.

The part would mean the bomb could be completed. It meant they could take out the croatoan mother ship for good. He closed his eyes and rested his head against the cool concrete of the old bank.

Sacrificing yourself for the greater good was one thing, but having to sacrifice those you loved weighed much more heavily. But what could he do? Deciding that his dad had always proven himself to be right, and knowing the hunter wouldn’t have it all his own way, Denver decided to go for the warehouse. He just hoped his dad and Maria had a plan.

He aimed the alien rifle into the sky and pulled the trigger. The gun barely kicked back as it fired with a loud but short crack, making his ears whistle. The motors inside whirred again. At least he knew how it worked. He’d come back for the hunter after he got the part. He just hoped he’d be back in time.