Reckoning ~ Indian Hill 2 ~ A Michael Talbot Adventure (13 page)

Chapter 17

The girls had retired to the front porch and were enjoying some wine in the cool mountain air when they became aware that something was amiss.

“Beth, do you hear anything?”

“No, nothing at all. It’s so quiet up here, none of the traffic like back East.”

“No, Beth. I’m not talking about traffic I’m talking about anything, bugs, crickets, owls, anything?”

“Now that you mention it, I don’t hear anything. I thought it was just me, but I was beginning to feel a little creeped out.”

“Yeah, sort of like when we were on the ship.”

Both girls looked up, almost as if on cue. Deb was vaguely aware as she spilled some wine that it was probably going to stain her parents’ front deck, but the importance of that completely eluded her.

“Dad!!!” Deb screamed.

Her father came hauling ass after hearing his daughter. “What’s going on?” her father said, nearly panicked. “Deb, I thought a mountain lion was attacking you two!” He then noticed the spilled drinks. “Girls, I really think you can handle this mess by yourselves, without all the drama!” he chided. He was beginning to feel a little perturbed that his daughter caused his blood pressure to rise by fifty points for the spilled drink. “You know, if you don’t wipe that up soon, it’s going to stain.”

“Dad, get Mom and Duke and the keys to the root cellar.”

“Hon, they don’t have tornadoes in the foothills. You know that. A lot of lightning, but no tornadoes.”

“Dad, shut up and get Mom.”

Deb’s quiet steeliness unsettled her father, but he was still under the impression that this was just one of her many panic attacks since returning from heaven only knows where.

“Dad!” Deb exclaimed as she pointed up into the sky. Recognition finally dawned on his face.

“I’ll g-g-go get your mother.”

“Good idea, Dad.” Deb said returning her gaze skyward.

Chapter 18

“Hey Paul! The last of our troops should be arriving within the next five or six hours.”

“I don’t think they’re going to make it, Wags.”

“Come on, Paul! You told me yourself you got away from the Marines without them discovering anything.”

“You’re right, buddy, they have no clue; but I just got off the phone with the observatory in Hawaii and our interplanetary friends are on the way.”

“Paul, tell me you’re kidding. We’ve only got about half of our troops ‘holed up’.”

“No joke, Wags. He says the front running ships will most likely be here in an hour, or two, tops. I want you to issue a Code Red callback on all of our troops. Tell them if they’re not back in an hour, then don’t bother. At one hour exactly, I want the cave gates closed and locked. Then I want everything topside blacked out, and I mean completely out. I don’t so much as want a lighter up there. I also want all satellite transmissions halted immediately. Understood?”

“No problem, consider it done. Paul, I just have one question.” Paul knew it was coming and was somewhat surprised that it had taken so long.

“Paul, where is Mike?” Paul thought about lying and saying that Mike had left camp to be with Beth but thought better of it. Historically, he had never been a good liar and Dennis was bound to find out eventually.

“Paul, Ron’s here. I’m going to have to tell him something. And it’s not only him; I want to know and there are others.” Dennis suspected Paul might be trying to blow him off by stalling, but he was determined to find out the truth. Something stunk around here and he meant to get to the bottom of it.

“Dennis,” Wags didn’t like the tone of Paul’s voice any time someone used his first name. It usually meant bad news, and this time was no different. “Mike was a spy.”

“What do you mean ‘spy’? And what do you mean ‘was’!”

“Dennis, I don’t have time to explain it all right now; but I did what I had to do; I took care of it. I promise to tell you everything and show you the proof as soon as we have some down time.”

“Paul, what do I tell Ron?”

“You tell him that you have no idea where Mike is; tell him that you think he’s still in Colorado.”

“Aw Paul, I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.”

“I’ll explain it later, but for now, get my orders in motion or I won’t have to explain myself at all.” Dennis understood that completely, but he was still shaking his head in disbelief as he headed out the door.

Chapter 19

The Marines were nothing, if not prepared, General Weston thought to himself. They had completely dug themselves in, thanks, in large part, to the departing army that preceded them. It truly was an amazing maze of trenches and cave systems that crisscrossed the mountain top. They must have worked twenty-four/seven, the general thought to himself. He felt more secure here than at the El Toro base. He wasn't sure if even those defensive measures would be enough to withstand the coming onslaught.

Chapter 20

Militaries around the world braced for the storm. Enemies who, moments earlier, were locked in mortal combat now stood shoulder-to-shoulder waiting for the impending doom to rain down. For the briefest of times in the globe’s history, world peace was upon us. Man stood beside his fellow man, regardless of race, creed, color, or any other bogus manifestation of hate created by human discrimination.

For a few hours in the history of man, something that had been prophesized for millennia was taking place. The why of it had always been conveniently omitted by the ancient prophets. The lucky souls who passed away by natural causes in those last few hours and thereby escaped the coming hell would be forever thankful.

Chapter 21

The gun ships were roughly the size of the tanks they were attacking, with far more mobility. The general noted no props or detectable engines of any kind. There was no rotor splash or jet exhaust; how they flew was a complete mystery. Their mobility, however, was not as good as he had expected. They appeared to be more designed for spatial combat, not terrestrial. They flew well but not spectacularly well. In reality, they looked more like Volvo station wagons with fins--basically flying bricks. Okay, so they were big bricks with unimaginable weaponry.

The first rounds slammed into the recently vacated and newly repopulated mountaintop above Vail. Rounds? General Weston thought to himself. He didn’t really think that they could be classified as rounds.

The bluish light that emanated from the gunships was in sharp contrast to the silvery red that begat the devastation the blasts made when they struck home. The M-1 Abrams tank that was targeting the gunship while awaiting orders to fire had been what? Not vaporized, more like liquefied. All that remained of the fifteen-ton vehicle and its five crew members was something akin to slag. Bright, red-embered slag. Could it be brought down? Visible panic dominated the afterglow for a few seconds of almost every Marine on that mount. But none broke ranks. There would be no running, not that there would have been enough time anyway.

The Progerians’ first strike was all the incentive the Marines needed to open fire. The mountaintop was lit up like a spectacular fireworks display. Red tracers shot upwards as blue fire rained down. The remaining tanks began to move and fire rapidly so as not to make such easy targets. The gunships targeted the behemoth machines first.

General Weston wondered if the aliens were possibly afraid of them. Then, as if on some cosmic cue, a tank round hit pay dirt. The gunship rocked sideways from the force of the blast, that was all the general noticed at first with a serious heaping of dismay. If the strongest weapon in their arsenal at this moment couldn’t do more than knock the ship off course for a few seconds, then of what use would small arms fire be? The general desperately wanted to sound the call to fall back, fall back where though? The carnage was mounting, the screams of Marines writhing in agony was deafening. He began to flashback to his Vietnam days.

“Oh God, what have I done?” the general asked as he stood up and surveyed all that was happening around him, almost oblivious to it all. What sent him further away was an incredibly loud ‘POP’.

***

He recognized it as the sound that his old cork gun made when he was seven years old. The one his brother had traded for a pack of baseball cards. He had been so mad then, he almost cussed. His mother would have paddled his ass for an hour, had he not thought better of it. It all worked out in the end. His brother had to buy him a new gun, he got the pack of baseball cards, and he got to watch as his mother paddled his brother’s behind.

Days later, his big brother, Mikey, got him back. Mikey was more upset that his little brother saw the tears welling up in his eyes. Mikey made it look like an accident with the swing, but they both knew better. His brother kept pushing the swing higher and higher, even though Johnny screamed for him to stop, to no avail. Johnny was terrified that the swing would fly off into space. He got so scared, he simply let go. Had Johnny turned around, he would have seen the mortified look on his brother’s face. Johnny let go when the swing reached its highest point. Mikey knew no good would come of it and slowly Johnny fell, straight at first, and then a little skewed to the left. Finally, he plunged to the ground with a snap and a crash.