The Gold slowly approached, her arms outstretched, palms open. A female at the lead of the group stepped forward and stopped when the alien raised her hand. She approached the female and placed a reflective cap atop her head. Almost instantly, the female knelt down to the surface of the road. The Gold nodded and reached into a pouch, retrieving another bowl. It looked up to the next female and waved her forward—the heavyset woman draped in blankets. Two teenaged girls followed close behind, flanking the blanketed woman on both sides.
“I don’t like this. I think I’ll put a bullet in that little one handing out Yamakas,” Clem whispered, allowing the red dot to pan and settle center on the back of the gold-sleeved alien.
Before Masterson could respond, the large woman threw the blanket aside, revealing a snub-nosed revolver. Time seemed to slow as Clem watched the woman’s arm extend inches from the gold-sleeved alien’s face. The woman pulled the trigger, and the Gold’s helmeted head snapped, a puff of red mist exploding from the back. The teen girls on either side drew small hand guns, each unloading into the guards to their fronts.
“Give them cover!” Clem shouted, finally back to his senses. He pivoted hard on his elbows and centered his optic on the alien in the turret. Before he could pull the trigger, the top of the vehicle exploded in bright yellow flames. The alien flailed, its blue-and-red suit engulfed in flame. Clem exhaled and squeezed the trigger, the round tearing through the alien’s armor. He heard Masterson’s machine gun open up behind him, ripping rounds into the aliens in reserve, cutting them down as they ran forward toward the civilians, making them easy targets in the open, and swallowed in the flames of the burning vehicle.
Clem pulled his eye back from the scope, working the bolt as he searched for more targets. He saw the women now scattered across the road front. The rolling suitcase was open, revealing bottles stuffed with rags; the women were showering the vehicle with Molotov cocktails. The husky woman stopped over each downed creature, finishing them with a single shot to the head from the revolver while the teen girls swarmed over the dead, removing equipment.
With all of the aliens down, Clem eased off the trigger. He looked to Masterson, who was already on his feet and bounding ahead toward the ambush site. Clem pushed himself to his knees and gathered his equipment. He made another quick scan of the area before moving down, watching the crumpled alien forms as he approached.
The women on the road took notice of the approaching men. The broad shouldered woman drew a second handgun from her belt and leveled it at Masterson, who quickly put up his hands and slowed his approach. “All on the same side here,” Clem shouted, closing the distance. “I’m Clem; this is my buddy, Matt. Mind telling me who you all are?”
The woman lowered her weapon and grabbed the gold-sleeved body by a wrist, straightening its arm. Another female stepped from the back and, using a long blade, slashed down, removing the dead alien’s hand.
“What are you doing?” Clem asked.
The woman turned to face him. She stopped and opened what looked like a velvet bag attached to the gold-sleeved creature’s hip. She dumped its contents onto the road, the saucer-shaped devices clanging as they spilled out. “These are some type of mind-control devices. Only a guide’s hand can remove it once it’s in place.” She pointed as another woman used the dead alien’s hand to remove the saucer from the elderly woman’s head.
“Guides?” Masterson asked.
The women quickly circled back around the blanketed woman, the teen girls holding bags stuffed with goods, the roller suitcase now re-filled with the alien rifles. She looked at Clem and Masterson then down at a stopwatch hanging around her neck. “I’d be happy to speak to you, but we have to get off the road. They’ll have called for backup by now.”
An explosion roared from the north. Clem turned to see a mushroom cloud forming over the distant trees. “We were ready for their back up,” Clem said. “Mind telling me who you all are now?”
Before she could answer, an open-backed pickup truck raced onto the road from somewhere in the woods. The women quickly tossed their goods into the back and piled in.
“You can call me Ruth,” she said, tossing her blankets into the truck and pulling herself into the back.
“Now, you all coming or just going to stand here with your thumbs up your ass?” the woman shouted.
Chapter Seventy-Three
The man’s heart still raced in a panicked frenzy; he stood by the window, looking out into a street filled with soldiers. Transports roared over the surface, surrounded by scores of the witnesses; no longer apathetic, they were now active and enraged. The high council will not stand for this. They will be out for vengeance and looking for someone to punish. He looked at the defiant woman he had been assigned. Why this one? he thought, dropping his head. Why not one of the more subservient wives from the refugee camps, who were eager for a fresh bed and comfort?
“What have your people done?” Francis said, eyeing the woman standing stoically behind a kitchen counter. He saw the smug expression on her face, the lack of understanding in her eyes.
Laura laughed defiantly. “My people? Are you no longer part of the human race?”
“What was it you said when the Messenger was killed?” he asked.
She pursed her lips and looked away.
“It was something about rejection; do you know what this act of defiance will mean to the community?” Francis turned
