Chapter 707

The Cavern

... Whitworth had left his position and made his way to them just as the very air itself seemed to shimmer with a vague humanoid shape that would have been totally invisible had it not been so close to Whitworth. His rifle, like Kayla’s, was on a sling and couldn’t be easily jerked from his grasp. Before the General even realized the being was there, it had grabbed the barrel and jerked it aside, but Whitworth shifted his grip to his left hand, drew and fired his sidearm far faster than one would expect. The nearly invisible alien, certainly not expecting the human to react so quickly, died with three rounds in the center of its chest.

The original aliens all dropped to their knees with Ship’s enhanced translator hard-pressed to interpret their chanting to the unseen aliens.

“Kayla,” Jeff shouted, “Beware. There are near-invisible beings here. Back into a corner or something so they can’t get behind you and watch for a shimmer. Don’t let them get your rifle,” he needlessly added.

Kayla saw what seemed to be ripples in the air near the bottom of the steps dividing one section of seats from another. After frantically looking around her, she crouched in a nook beside the doorway they had used to enter the amphitheater. No sooner had she knelt than she saw what seemed to be heat shimmers halfway up the stairs. She snapped her rifle up and gave the area two short bursts, which resulted in screams and the thuds of bodies collapsing to the stairs.

“Kayla!” Jeff yelled. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, but two of our ghosts aren’t,” she snarled back. “Once the invisibility is gone, they’re some seriously ugly bastards,” she added.

“Sir, we need to get your team to safety.”

“No shit,” Whitworth responded, the three now standing back-to-back as they tried to see the nearly-invisible aliens.

“Here,” Jeff called out to the scientists, “all of you hunker down around the General, the First Officer and me.”

“I can’t see a thing,” the lead scientist growled out as she knelt with her back to Jeff. “It was the same way back at the river. When the earthquake and the cave-in started, we ran back to our runabout and got out of the cavern, but almost as soon as we had our tents set up by the river, weird things began happening. Odd that the group with the spears didn’t attack us in the cavern the first time, but they must have discovered us after we returned. We had returned our runabout to where we had it parked the first time and were exploring the amphitheater when we were suddenly surrounded by them. Our Security people fought, but the guys with the spears beat them unconscious with the butts of their spears. Before then, we never knew the spear guys were anywhere around, let alone the invisible ones. Come to think of it, as big as this place is, they might not have known we were in here until we found the amphitheater. Who knows?”

“The weird things that were happening by the river must have been the invisible ones, but I still don’t know what we did to piss off either group. Maybe they thought the cave-in was our fault,” the other female scientist said. “Whatever, the group with the spears attacked our Security people and surrounded us with those spears jabbing at us. We never really saw any of them until they pounced on us, nor had we found any signs of recent occupation until we stumbled onto this place.”

The lead scientist remarked, “We only photographed the artifacts, but I agree with you. I think the spear guys didn’t have a clue about us being here until after the cave-in. I suspect that these passageways run for miles, and we’ve only been in a very small part of it. Their attack was unprovoked, but you guys arrived just in time, because I think they had made up their minds to kill us.”

“As far as the invisible group and the orange group is concerned, I don’t know who is helping whom, but I want out of here. This place is a honeycomb of passageways. They know their way around, and we don’t,” one of the male scientists growled out.

There was a shimmer near the door that the beings used to enter the amphitheater, and the General sprayed it with his pulse rifle. There was a scream, but they saw nothing else for the moment.

Where the General had shot the being that was trying to wrestle his rifle from him, something shimmered, and suddenly a different kind of alien was lying there, obviously dead, with its chest slowly leaking something that was a nauseating greenish yellow.

Whatever it was seemed to have origins that sprang from something that swam, because it appeared to have two sets of breathing apparatus.

“I kept dreaming of those things killing and eating us, and the dreams happened almost every night. My nightmares came to life,” the first female said with a shudder.

As they were talking, the other aliens, perhaps seeing their deities killed, had decided to leave.

After waiting ten minutes or so with no sign of more of the last group of aliens, the General put his rifle on stun and swept the whole area around them.

“Kayla,” Jeff called out, but she, having seen what the General had done, also sprayed the area around her with her rifle set on stun.

“I think it’s about time for us to leave. Dr. Emerson, are you and your people in shape to walk out of here?” the General asked.

“My feet are still somewhat numb, but I think I can make it. How about you, Emma?”

“I’m okay, but they treated the men worse than they did us. Are you two okay?” Emma asked the men.

They looked at each other before Liam answered, “Hell, yes. But I hate to think about leaving our runabout. That thing really comes in handy.”

“Exactly,” Ben agreed. “It would be a lot easier to ride out of here, and by the way, thanks for saving our asses. Colonel, I’ve seen you at headquarters, but we’ve never met.”

That led to introductions all around except for the General, who, of course, knew all the scientists.

“So where is the runabout, anyway?” Kayla, who had joined them, asked.

The two females turned to Liam, who hesitated, but when he realized that Ben, too, was looking at him, shrugged and said, “It’s just a quirk. I can always find my way back. The runabout isn’t far from here, but I suspect that the original group of aliens will expect us to go looking for it.”

“Then we’ll be careful,” the General inserted.

“How long were you tied up?” Kayla asked Dr. Emerson.

“They took our watches, but I suspect it was five or six hours. At least they untied us once and let us use their version of a restroom, and I, for one, need to go again.”

“Where is it?” Jeff asked.

“Through that doorway there,” Dr. Emerson said, pointing.

At first, Jeff had not noticed the doorway because of the lighting, but when she pointed, he made out the concealed entrance.

A moment later, Jeff, who was checking out the area while the women used the restroom, found the team’s weapons stacked in a corner.

A few minutes later, Liam, walking beside Jeff, led them through the entrance that the warriors had used, then on down more corridors, these unmarked by the team.

“I hope you know where you’re going,” Dr. Emerson said, “because I certainly don’t.”

“You will recognize it when we get there,” Liam said, his voice positive.

Jeff’s headlight caught a shimmer. A second later, there was a scream as the Prime’s TK slammed the alien against the passage wall. Jeff sprang ahead, the First Officer with him, the men kneeling as Jeff’s hands roamed over a nearly invisible body until he found what he wanted, and yanked. Suddenly, one of the ugly aliens was lying there unconscious.

“Just as I thought. It’s technology, and look what else I found,” as he and the First rolled the alien onto its side before taking a sidearm of some kind from the being.

“Keep the thing that makes the invisibility as well as the pistol,” Whitworth said. “Maybe my people can reverse engineer both of them.”

The First Officer tucked the alien pistol under his belt, and Jeff kept the invisibility device.

The alien was showing signs of awakening, and Jeff turned to Kayla. “Stun him.”

Kayla did so almost before the words were out of Jeff’s mouth.

“Keep a sharp lookout,” the Prime reminded them.

Moments later, they rounded a steep turn into a large room to find the runabout sitting there, apparently undamaged.

“At least they didn’t destroy our ride,” Emma said.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Kayla remarked.

Proudly, the General commented, “The way this thing is built, it would take a concerted effort to do much damage to it. The seats are mesh steel, and speaking of steel, the tires are constructed of mesh steel too. The instrument panel, such as it is, is recessed and armored, The power source is armored and sealed, as are the electric motors that propel each wheel. It will operate underwater as well as in any environment my people could think of. If it rolls over, the heavy cage will prevent any damage to the seating compartment. The padding on the inside of the roll cage could be destroyed with enough effort, I suppose, but the mesh seats would still be usable. Oh, yeah, the power source is good for another five years.

“The only problem is that we can’t all get inside it, since it only seats six,” Dr. Emerson said.

“That’s the reason for those,” the General said proudly as he pointed to recesses for footholds around the outside of the vehicle and handholds near the top of the passenger cage. “Extra personnel can hang on the outside. There are also front and back gunners’ positions on the roof with flat places to sit on and recesses for your feet to brace against, also belts to keep you in place,” Whitworth said.

“And ... for the personnel inside, the bars of the cage are easily wide enough to shoot between,” the General added as he turned back to Kayla. “Would you take the rear-guard position inside the runabout, and Colonel, take the rooftop rear gunner’s position. I’ll take the forward rooftop gunner’s position. And to everyone ... stun if you can but go lethal if they start to overwhelm us. Don’t be hesitant. These beings have already severely beaten my Security people. When in doubt — kill the bastards.”

Whitworth turned to Liam. “Since you just proved your sense of direction, you drive.”

The Science Team had used this area for their campsite, and most of their equipment was here, but it had been rummaged through and some of the instruments destroyed.

“Gather up what you can of your equipment,” Whitworth told the team, “but don’t worry about packing things properly. Just put everything salvageable in the runabout before the shock wears off and the aliens get brave enough to come back.”

“Get down,” Kayla screamed even as she hit the ground with her rifle already sweeping the area where she had seen the shimmers. Her pulses, barely seen at first, were quickly visible as the powerful energy smashed into the dirt and rock walls creating clouds of dust and debris. The blue beams of the enemy’s hand weapons stood out and made target identification much easier. In addition to the sound of Kayla’s pulse rifle firing, was the reports of the First Officer’s sidearm adding to the den. The fight was over in seconds.

As soon as Kayla had yelled, Whitworth, firing his rifle with one hand, had begun shoving the scientists behind the runabout, heedless of the danger to himself.

As soon as the firefight was over, “Everybody okay?” Jeff asked as he kicked weapons away from the now totally visible and riddled alien bodies. Everybody acknowledged, but the General’s voice sounded odd as he sat down hard beside the runabout.

“Sir?” Jeff called out as he sprinted toward his boss. The First Officer took a step in that direction, but turned back to guard against more possible enemies as did Kayla, who looked with approval at the First Officer.

“It’s nothing,” Whitworth denied, but his face was ashen as he held a hand capped over his left upper arm near his shoulder, blood leaking between his fingers. One look and Jeff knew that the wound would be bleeding even worse had it not been for the cauterizing effect the beam had caused when it took a sizeable chunk of flesh and muscle out of the General’s arm. “What am I doing sitting here?” Whitworth mumbled. “It’s only a scratch,” he insisted just before he passed out.

“Dammit,” Jeff hissed, “I let Arlene talk me into taking Little One with her.”

Emma shouldered her way past the others, knelt beside the General and opened a professional medic’s case.