Weekend Special Short Tales California 2.3 Chapter 12

 

12.

“Hotel California or Research Base VI was created two years when we embarked on alien anatomies and their workings. I was assigned here when they discovered an alien ship here. The aliens were unique and ..”

“Giant in dimension. We saw it when we retrieved the Container when it broke loose.” I cut in.

“The container was our work.” The Lieutenant frowned at me for intervening into her explanation. “As I mentioned, we set up base with a complement of seven scientists and three squads of Marines including Tom and Jerry here. We explored the downed ship and found more that giants. We found the other aliens. They were aplenty and took some samples.”

“That was to trigger the attack and then they overran the base. We fought back hard but we were outgunned and outnumbered. We were forced to retreat here and I communicated with the Marines General. The order was to destroy everything. They wanted to bombard the moon but the armada was too far away. The plan then was to get a ship here to be loaded with the explosives. I checked the order realized it was Hirohito’s ship. I sneaked in the communication to Hirohito and took over the system.”

“The container was to jettison there and explode but it did not. It did not work. I had to alert Hirohito come here. He did but it did turn out as expected.”

“The Hell it did. We are here now and the container is in orbit above.” I was upset then and looked at Hirohito. “You got us into this mess. You did not even tell me about it.”

“He couldn’t.” The Lieutenant cut in. “I told him to remain silent. I know him well. He will do it out of honor and love.”

“Enough of the theatrics. How do we kill those outside?” I asked. “And how did you kill it without spilling their bodily fluid?”

“We contained the acid with the retardant coating we created for it. The issue is not the aliens but the giants. Their ship is transmitting the beacon and we need to stop it.”

“What beacon? You mean to say there may be more out there.” I had to cut in.

“Yes, we have wanted to meet the aliens.”

“Our kind had met maybe a dozen out there and we have war with eight of the seven. We are not the most ‘hello, I like you’ type.” I re-stated the notion of the real Earthlings. “Among us for centuries, we fight those who hold a different shade to their eyes and worse, their skin, and maybe how they eat their food. We fucking antagonist to the ways of living as one.”

“I am for one. I don’t have my body conjoined at the groin. I only shared my fluids.” That was my sexual orientation talking. “And I haul dead bodies.”

That came out well compared to I was cleaning shit every other day.

“The way to do it is in the container. If we can bring it down, we explode it on the base. And also kill the aliens.” The Lieutenant made sense then.

“And we are low in supplies. We either die hungry or fed to the aliens.” That was a no brainer way to tell we were to die horribly.

“Okay, we get the container.” I looked at the ceiling. “We are in the basement now.”

The question was how to re-attach it and had it drag down. And we stand to lose our bonus it may be lost by then due to the delay. Hirohito lay down the concerns.

“First we need to get back to the ship. Then fly out. And then re-attach the frame. Fly down and hover over the other ship and released the container. Then fly out. I wished it was that easy.” Hirohito looked at Benz. “Can we make it up?”

“I think we can but I needed more heat exchanger plates. It will help us.” Benz cut in and motioned to the other military ship “What happened to it?”

“The ship was parked there for maintenance and the aliens hit first. They knew that was the getaway.” The Lieutenant replied. The blast doors were banged on. It ended the conversation. I asked for the structure layout. The structure was three levels build into the hill, in a rounded formation with escape hatches there to the side of the hill. The top most was the hangar with a round radius and the sections of the components and tools. The level below that was designed like a cross below, with the northern and eastern side of the structure which were the science labs and the west side were the barracks and personal quarters and the southern side was the storage and the servers with the power sets. That was the subterranean level and the bottom was the morgue and pens if you considered detention cells as one that resembled cages.

We were at the eastern side in the labs.

I was communicating with the ship and towards Huginn and Muninn.

“Droids. This is my command. You will put on the napalm set. You used that to burn the parasites.” I channel my command to the droids. I knew the two won’t let me down. I turned to the others. “We are breaking for the ship.”

At the ship, Muginn had locked in place the napalm set on its back, and then moved to the hangar door. Huginn did the same and moved to the door when it slid down. When the door was partially open, the smaller aliens were rushing to get in. The droids went into action. The jet of flames went out and scorched the aliens. There were shrieks and screeches before the undead aliens retreated. The door came down to a full stop and the two droids stepped out. The scene outside was roasted aliens and blackened flooring. It then split up and went for the aliens at the hull.

I was out with the in a single line behind the Sergeant. Tom and Jerry was backing me. The other line was on the side was Hirohito, and the Lieutenant, with Benz and Hagar. Dickson chose his own side, and he went with the Lieutenant.

“We are limited in ammo, so don’t be spendthrift.” The Sergeant roared just then. “Count your shots. Get into the bottom cover. It will protect your arse being burnt by their body fluid.”

“We had it designed after we studied the body fluid corrosive elements. It does help.” The Lieutenant explained. I was not complaining of its use but having put on the bottom cover from the boots to the waist line, I saw myself like a circus clown to flap onto the arena. We had distributed the clips and each of us has two clips per rifle. The same for the blaster with two clips each.

“Go for the short burst.” The military held a grenade on each of them. “The mothers are the worse. Aim for the head and they will collapse fast.”

“The mothers?” Benz asked. The Sergeant did not answered then and hit the switch to open the blast doors. Once we stepped out into the corridor, we were met by the aliens.

And their mothers. Those were awesome with the height twice of us, and they have evolved into spidery designs with the six legs and the nasty looking head with the two antennas. The mouth piece was the nastier part with double fangs.

“Shoot the critters.” The Sergeant called out. I did as told. When the military said shoot, you don’t ask where.