Resistance (8 page)

So the shotgun remained where it was as he crossed the open area, passed the barn on his right, and spotted some snow-blurred tracks that ran down through a gully and up the other side. Some of the impressions had
been made by various types of livestock, but there were others as well, including impressions left by splay-footed Hybrids.

As Hale sidestepped his way up the slope, he was careful not to pop up over the top, knowing that just about anything might lie in wait beyond. But his fears were groundless, and when he brought the binoculars up, all he saw was open prairie.

No, not all. Some of the tracks wandered off to the right and left, but the rest led to a point where a dark smudge could be seen, about a hundred yards in front of him. There were no sounds other than the measured rasp of his own breathing, the soft rustle of his parka, and the insistent sigh of the wind.

Hale's tracks overlaid all the rest as he made his way out toward the dark thing—and he was momentarily startled when a flock of crows took to the air.

A moment later he realized he was looking at a dead Titan. Judging from the sizable cavity where its abdominal organs should have been, the carcass had been lying there for days. The variety of tracks in the blood-tinged snow indicated that scavengers of every possible description had been feeding off the carcass for some time. But what was responsible for the monster's death?

Certainly it hadn't been a band of civilians, even if any remained in the area. Titans were twenty feet tall, carried powerful cannons, and were notoriously difficult to kill. Hale knew firsthand, because he'd been forced to tackle the beasts in England, and had no desire to do so again.

So what brought the Titan down, Hale wondered, as he circled the body. A strafing attack by a Sabre Jet? Had a VTOL happened by on its way back from a mission?
Hale figured it had been something of that sort, although he would never know for sure.

The next three hours were spent slogging across the gently rolling prairie. Hale was forced to cut his way through a barbed wire fence on one occasion, and came across others that, judging from the tracks in the snow, had been torn down by a Chimeran Stalker. A patrol perhaps? If so it was one more thing he had to worry about.

There were other signs of the enemy presence as well, including piles of frost-glazed Hybrid dung, a dead steer that had been riddled with projectiles from a Chimeran Bullseye, and the remains of an encampment littered with partially gnawed human bones. All of which forced Hale to slow down lest he inadvertently walk into a Chimeran emplacement.

By that time he knew he was nearing the White River. It ran roughly east and west, a few miles south of the main highway that ran between Rapid City and Sioux Falls. The Rocking F Ranch was located in the strip of land south of the highway and north of the river.

In order to get there Hale would have to cross the river via one of the local bridges. The span he had in mind was a modest affair that had been put in place to serve ranchers who needed to move livestock back and forth across the waterway. Hale had spent the first two decades of his life in the area, so he knew exactly how to reach the bridge. But would it still be there? If so, was it being used by the Chimera? There was only one way to find out.

At that point Hale decided to remove the clumsy snowshoes, bundle them with the ski poles, and tie all of them to his pack. Then, boots sinking into the snow, he fought his way up the side of a low-lying hill to an outcropping of rock at the top. A spot where a much
younger Hale had spent many an hour while his horse grazed below. It was a fairly simple matter to circle around, find cover, and examine the bridge through his binoculars.

The good news was that the structure was still in place, but the bad news was that four stinks were guarding it. Two of the Hybrids were stationed at the north end of the span, one carrying a Bullseye, and two of them paced back and forth at the south end, one of them wielding an Auger.

The Chimera had smooth skulls, six eyes each, and mouths filled with needle-sharp teeth. None of the stinks were equipped with the sort of cool packs Hale had seen in England, suggesting that the cold weather was to their liking, and sufficient to keep their core temperatures down.

This was a disappointment, since it had been Hale's hope to carry out his self-assigned mission entirely unnoticed. But he wasn't about to let four Hybrids prevent him from reaching his goal. So he shrugged off the pack, put the Rossmore aside, and brought the Fareye around to where he could use it. Then, placing his right glove on a rock, he set the rifle on top of it.

With that accomplished, Hale brought his eye down to the telescopic sight and began the not altogether unpleasant process of deciding which stink to kill first.

He needed to drop all four of the aliens one right after the other, if possible, both to clear a path across the bridge and to prevent them from spotting him before he had finished taking them down. Had the targets been human, Hale might have chosen to kill an officer or non-com first, but with no way to determine which freak was in charge, he had to rely on speed. So he made the decision to drop the sentries located at the north end of the
bridge first, because they were farther away and had quicker access to cover.

Then would come the ticklish task of swinging the Fareye to the right and acquiring his other two targets, both of whom would probably be firing on him by then. Thanks to the distance, he would retain the advantage, however, so he couldn't allow them to come closer. Because the last thing he wanted was for the alien with the Bullseye to tag him and send a dozen projectiles to seek him out. Or for the stink with the Auger to shoot
through
the rocks, and kill him that way.

Judging from the drift of the snowflakes the wind was blowing west to east, something Hale would need to take into consideration along with the ambient air temperature and the way the slug would drop slightly while in flight. With all of those factors in mind, he placed the crosshairs over the first Chimera's head, made a tiny adjustment for the wind, and tilted the barrel up a fraction of an inch. Then, having taken a deep breath, he let most of it out. The trigger seemed to squeeze itself.

The Fareye nudged Hale's shoulder, but thanks to the cylindrical silencer, the report was no louder than a baby's cough. Hale saw a halo of blood appear as the Chimera's head exploded, but resisted the desire to watch the body fall, knowing that every second was precious.

Target number two was turning circles at that point, trying to figure out where the bullet had come from, and that was when the second slug hit. The Hybrid went facedown in the snow and slid for a good two feet before finally coming to rest.

Swinging the rifle to the right in an attempt to acquire the third and fourth targets, he saw only one of his opponents. An object blurred past his telescopic sight, and Hale brought the rifle back, noting with a grim sense of
satisfaction that one of the Hybrids was hiding behind a bridge support.

Time seemed to slow as Hale poured his entire being into making the critical shot. Slowly but surely the crosshairs drifted into place, Hale sent the necessary message to his right index finger, and felt it tighten on the trigger. The rifle coughed and a sudden spray of blood marked a hit as the third Chimera fell. It was only wounded, however, and a pink smear marked its progress as it began to drag itself through the slush.

Hale wanted to finish the Hybrid—
needed
to finish him—but there was the fourth one to consider. So he swung the rifle away, quartered the ground below, and came up empty. That was when the breeze flew a rank odor into Hale's nostrils and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

He felt the Hybrid's foul breath wash across the left side of his face, and swore as long needle-sharp fangs sank into his shoulder. There wasn't enough time in which to bring the Fareye around, and the Chimera was too close for him to shoot it with the long-barreled weapon, anyway, so Hale made a grab for the double-edged commando knife that was fastened to his forearm. As he did, the stink lost its grip, but leaned in to press its advantage.

The Fairbairn Sykes fighting knife had been a gift from Lieutenant Cartwright in England, and as he jerked the weapon free of its sheath, Hale leaned away from his attacker. Then, bringing the double-edged blade around with his right hand, Hale drove its six inches of steel through one of the Chimera's yellow-gold eyes.

Something warm squirted onto Hale's fist as the Hybrid opened its jaws, screeched in pain, and reeled backward. Since it was still moving he guessed that the sliver
of steel had missed the Chimera's brain, but it was sticking out through the spot where a human nose would be. So it
should
have been dead, but bounced off the rock face behind it.

Having regained a momentary advantage, Hale threw himself to the left. The Rossmore was there, leaning against the pack, and he made a desperate grab for it, but the Hybrid was on him by then. Its skeletal fingers were wrapped around his throat as it pressed down with all its weight.

Hale felt dizzy, knew he would lose consciousness soon, and sought to push the stink away with his left hand while exploring the ground with his right. His fingers found and rejected two smaller rocks before finally closing around a chunk of granite that had the right amount of heft.

Then, as the world began to fade to black, Hale brought the rock up with all of his strength. There was a loud
thok
as the makeshift weapon found its mark, and a sudden loosening of the creature's grip as all of the alien's remaining eyes rolled back in his head. Suddenly the weight was gone as the Chimera fell over sideways and allowed Hale to scramble clear.

Within seconds he was back on his feet. There was a loud
boom
as Hale put a load of double-ought buckshot into the unconscious stink. The blast blew a hole the size of a dinner plate through the creature's chest.

It was tempting to fire
again
, just for the emotional satisfaction of it, but Hale knew he had to conserve ammo. So he stood there for a moment, chest heaving, his shoulder throbbing, as he fought to regain his composure.

Still in pain but functional once more Hale bent to retrieve his knife. There was a certain amount of suction, but having secured a good grip on the handle, he managed
to jerk the weapon free. After cleaning the blade, and returning the weapon to its sheath, he reloaded the Fareye and slung both it and the pack over his good shoulder.

That accomplished, and with the shotgun at the ready, Hale went hunting.

The third stink wasn't hard to find. Having made his way down onto the bridge deck, he picked up the Auger he had seen earlier. Then all Hale had to do was follow a trail through the blood-tinged slush to the north side of the span, where the badly injured Chimera was still dragging itself away. The ′brid snarled and snapped its teeth, but having left its weapon behind, there wasn't anything it could do as Hale fired half a clip of Auger rounds into the alien.

The body jerked convulsively as the projectiles passed through both it
and
the bridge deck to splash into the river below.

The weapon was too heavy to carry given the combined weight of his other armament, so Hale dropped it into the river, and followed the well-churned road north. Unlike the pristine whiteness of the prairie, this was a dangerous way to go, since a group of Chimera could come barreling down the road at any moment, yet there was a method to Hale's madness.

Even a Native American tracker would have found it difficult to pick his bootprints out of the muck that covered the road and Hale doubted that any of the Chimera possessed such skills. Plus, with solid cement only four or five inches under the slush, he could move faster.

And, as Hale topped a rise and followed the highway down to the point where it crossed a streambed, he had the opportunity to get off the road without leaving tracks. Which he proceeded to do.

Once in the half-frozen stream, Hale followed it west.
Twenty minutes later he was within the borders of the Rocking F Ranch. But the light had started to fade, and by now the bodies of the Hybrids would have been found. If a massive search wasn't already underway, it soon would be.

Which was why Hale forced himself to maintain a brisk pace until he spotted a four-foot-tall pine tree that lay within reach of the streambed. It took a moment to wrestle the tree out of the frozen soil and fill the hole with snow, but two minutes later Hale had what amounted to a broom.

With the tree in one hand and the shotgun in the other, he followed the creek uphill to the point where he could see the rocky hill that he and his family called Prospector's Knob, named after the rusty tools his father had found there.

Backing out of the stream, he used the tree to obliterate his tracks, and worked his way up to the point where the windswept hillside was clear of all but a thin dusting of snow. At that point it was safe to toss the tree in a ravine and continue on until he arrived at what a ten-year-old version of himself had called the Fort. A collection of car-sized rocks that had been the scene of many an imaginary battle, and still stood guard over a boyhood secret. One which, if it remained intact, might save Hale's life.

He entered the small clearing behind a screen of snow-frosted rocks and immediately made his way over to the base of the hill. Many years had passed since the slab of rock had been put into place, but it was still there. Having placed his pack and the Fareye off to the side, Hale lifted the slab out of the way.

That produced a jab of pain as he got down on hands and knees. A combination of dirt and loose gravel had filtered into the cavity from both sides, but once he
scooped the material away, a small opening was revealed. Hale's boyhood dog had discovered the hole and immediately scuttled in, forcing the youngster to follow. He was pretty sure he could still fit through the aperture, and was determined to give it a try.

Grabbing his pack, Hale shoved it into the cave, followed by the snowshoes and his weapons. He used the ski poles to push everything further in, then he lay down on his back and stuck his head into the blackness.