Sullivan Saga 2: Sullivan's Wrath (19 page)

Allen smiled. “You’ll find a way. If there’s anything I know about Richard Sullivan, it’s that he always finds a way.”

Sullivan sighed. “What the hell are we talking about? None of this will be necessary.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because if Liz or anyone else tells you to do something that you know is wrong, you’ll be able to resist. I know you will.”

Allen turned and looked Sullivan in the eyes. “I appreciate the pep talk, Rick, but you don’t understand. You haven’t been under their control the way I have. And I don’t think you could be. I don’t think they can get to just anybody, not strong people like you. But I’m not strong. I know it, and I accept it. If and when she comes back, I need you by my side. If I’ve decided to cross over, I need you to find a way to stop me.”

Sullivan nodded. “I understand, Frank. And don’t worry, I’ll be there.” He stood and picked up his rifle again. After scanning the terrain for a few minutes more, he held out his hand and helped Allen up. He pulled his friend into an embrace. “This will be over in a few days,” he said. “Then we can go back to our universe. All this will be over, and Kate and I will settle on Faris. And you’ll be with us, won’t you, Frank?”

Allen nodded.

“Good. Just a few more days and you’ll be able to let all of this go—I’ll be able to let it go. Then we can get on with our lives.” Sullivan looked into Allen’s eyes. He wasn’t entirely convinced that what he had told his friend was true, but he could tell that Allen was comforted by the thought.

CAPTAIN QUINN SILENTLY directed three of his men left, three more to the right. It had taken him a moment to process what he had seen only moments before, but his instincts as a soldier had quickly taken over.

Sullivan crept up beside Quinn. “There’s got to be at least thirty of them,” he whispered.

Quinn nodded. The alien creatures were down in an abandoned trench, sleeping in a tight ball, like rodents. Quinn unclipped a grenade from his belt. He signaled to the men he had sent in each direction to follow his lead. Quinn pulled the grenade’s pin and lobbed it into the trench. Two more grenades followed in quick succession.

The explosions vibrated through the ground below them, and a second after they had gone off, three of the creatures leapt up from the trench directly in front of Quinn, Allen and Sullivan. Some of them were missing limbs, but the damage from the grenades didn’t appear to have slowed them down.

Quinn pulled his Webley and fired point-blank into the face of the creature that was rushing him. Sullivan and Allen brought out their energy pistols and killed two more that had been right behind the first.

A scream brought Quinn’s attention to the men on his left. Two of them were on the ground, and a third was locked in battle with one of the aliens, keeping it at bay with his bayonet. Allen raised his energy pistol and shot the creature in the back. It fell forward onto Quinn’s man and spasmed wildly before dying.

The sound of movement brought their attention back to the trench directly in front of them. An alien, its legs missing, was patiently crawling its way up the side of the trench. Quinn stepped forward and kicked it in the face, sending it back into the mud. He carefully aimed his Webley and shot it in the mouth as it snarled up at him.

“What a bloody mess,” said Quinn, peering down into the trench.

“Oh, shit!” said Sullivan.

Quinn looked up and saw dozens of the aliens bounding across the open terrain on the far side of the trench.

Quinn’s men began firing their Enfields, but the creatures were closing too quickly. “Switch to the energy weapons!” he yelled over the gunfire.

He holstered his revolver and brought out his own energy weapon. He glanced as Sullivan. “We may not be able to make these last until we get to the wormhole!”

“Let Frank and me worry about that. If we don’t survive this, it won’t matter.”

Flashes of light lit up the near side of the trench as they began firing their energy weapons. The creatures had been moving fast but slowed slightly as they saw the flashes and witnessed their brothers dying instantly upon being hit. The reluctance cost them dearly.

Half a dozen aliens made it to the trench and leapt cleanly over it to attack the men. One landed next to Sullivan, and he kicked it away as it swung its claws at his face. It recovered quickly and pounced on top of Sullivan, who managed to use its momentum to roll it off of him. But Sullivan was flat on his back with the creature above his head, out of sight. He scrambled to move into a defensive position but wasn’t fast enough. The creature bit into his shoulder once then reared up to bite into his throat. Sullivan saw a flash of light then a fine mist covered his face. The alien flopped on top of him, dead. Sullivan frowned and spit out the gore that was dripping into his mouth. He rolled the creature off of him and saw the blackened hole in the back of the alien’s skull. Whatever the creature had for brains and blood had sprayed through its open mouth.

Sullivan looked up to see Allen standing with his pistol at his side. “You all right?” he asked, helping Sullivan to his feet.

Sullivan shrugged off his coat and tore open the collar of his shirt. A neat row of bleeding puncture marks formed two semi-circles on his shoulder.

“He hit the bone,” said Allen, “so he let go to try for a softer spot.” Allen pulled the medical kit out of his bag and began cleaning the wound.

“I hope these things aren’t venomous,” Sullivan said, wincing.

“You feel anything? Dizzy? Nauseated?”

“No, I’m fine.”

Allen finished dressing the bite. “Stay alert for anything out of the ordinary.”

“I will.”

Quinn stepped over to them. “Three more of my men dead.”

Sullivan put his hand on Quinn’s arm. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. In fact, we’d all probably be dead if you hadn’t shown up with your energy weapons.”

“And we’re close now,” said Sullivan. “I think the wormhole must be just over that rise. This lot,” he said, gesturing at the dead aliens, “probably just came through. That’s why they were in such a large group.”

Allen nodded. “We’ve never seen that many together before. We’re close, Captain. There will still be plenty of these things running around, but if we’re successful, at least there won’t be any more arriving.”

“Thank God for that,” said Quinn. “The bloody things were fast!”

“This close to the wormhole, they’re still fresh,” Allen said. “They haven’t been roaming the countryside for days like the others we’ve encountered.”

Quinn took out a cigarette. “I’m going to check on the rest of my men.” He looked at Sullivan’s shoulder. “Do you need a rest?”

“No, sir.”

“Good. We’ll start moving again in fifteen minutes.”

THE WORMHOLE DIDN’T look the way Sullivan had expected. He’d imagined something spectacular, like a glowing vortex or swirling light. Instead, it was just a dark disc. An occasional change in light revealed that there was something inside—or on the other side—but otherwise it was altogether unremarkable.

They had encountered a few more individual alien creatures, but it appeared the next wave had not yet arrived.

They set up to the side of the wormhole so as not to be in the direct path of anything that came through, but as they watched, nothing emerged from it.

“I thought Liz said this place would be guarded so we couldn’t bring the ship here directly.”

“She did,” said Sullivan. “Let me try something.” He picked up a large rock and lobbed it toward the wormhole. A solid beam of red light shot from the abyss and hit the rock. It exploded into a fine powder.

“If we get in front of that opening, I’m guessing the same will happen to us,” said Quinn.

“That response was far too quick. I’d be willing to bet that it’s an automated system,” said Sullivan. “The question is, can it handle more than one target at a time?”

Sullivan picked up two more rocks and handed them to Quinn and Allen. He found another and palmed it. “Ready?” he said. “On three. One… two… three.”

The rocks sailed into the air. The beam hit the rock that had flown nearest the wormhole. Half a second later, it hit the second, and a half second after that the third.

“There’s a reasonable delay,” said Allen.

Sullivan nodded. “Yes. And it goes after the nearest target first.” He took out his unused energy pistol. “Quinn, you and your men gather as many rocks as you can find. Allen and I will move across the wormhole and fire our weapons while you keep up a barrage in front of us. Hopefully the system isn’t smart enough to identify between high-and low-priority targets.”

“We can try a few more experiments,” said Quinn.

Sullivan held out his hand. “No, Captain. We need to do this now. Another wave of creatures could come through there at any time.”

Quinn shook Sullivan’s hand, then Allen’s. “Good luck, gentlemen.”

They waited for a few minutes while Quinn’s men gathered several piles of rocks, sticks and anything else they could throw in front of the wormhole.

“Ready?” Sullivan asked Allen.

“Yes.”

“We keep moving, right across the wormhole’s line of sight. If it doesn’t close after the first pass, we make another.”

“Got it.”

Sullivan turned to Quinn. “Now!”

He and Allen ran out into the clearing in front of the wormhole as the rocks began to fly. As they ran, they turned to the side and began firing their weapons into the mouth of the wormhole. The beam of light targeted the rocks that were zipping across right in front of the entrance. Sullivan counted five direct hits into the wormhole before they were once again clear of the opening.

“Did you see any change?” Allen asked.

Sullivan shook his head. “Another pass.”

He signaled to Quinn to resume the barrage as he and Allen ran back across the opening, toward Quinn’s men.

Sullivan paused to ensure that his next shot went directly down the middle of the wormhole. Just then, there was a lull in the rocks, and Sullivan saw the red beam center itself on his chest. He jumped to the side as it fired and landed hard on his shoulder. He looked up and saw that Allen was already clear of the wormhole and waving him over. Sullivan scrambled as Quinn’s men continued throwing stones, just making it clear as their immediate supply of rocks was exhausted.

Sullivan dropped to one knee to catch his breath.

“How many hits that time?” asked Quinn.

“I know we got at least three more shots in. Maybe four.”

Sullivan turned back to the wormhole. It appeared exactly as it had before. “Do you see anything different, Frank?”

“No. No change,” said Allen.

Sullivan lowered his head. “How many shots do you have left, Frank?”

“Two.”

“All right. One more pass. If that doesn’t do it, we’ll have to round up the energy rifles from the men.”

“We’re almost out of projectiles,” said Quinn.

“Throw what you have.”

“Wait a bit while we gather more.”

“No. Whatever is on the other side knows that they’re being attacked. If we stop, they’ll think that was all we were capable of. We need to make them close it down now before anything else comes through.” He got to his feet. “Ready, Frank?”

“Wait,” said Allen. “Something’s happening.”

Sullivan looked up and saw the disc of the wormhole slowly beginning to contract. After a few seconds, it was no larger than a tree trunk. A few seconds after that it had disappeared from view altogether.

They all cautiously walked toward the spot where the wormhole had been. “It’s gone,” Sullivan said.

Quinn laughed. “It’s gone?” He turned to his men. “It’s gone!”

A cry of joy erupted from the men.

Allen reached into his coat pocket and took out his remote to signal the ship. “Captain Quinn, you’re finally going to get to see a spaceship.”

Quinn smiled and looked skyward.

Allen tapped on the control. “Uh-oh,” he said after a minute.

“What?” asked Sullivan.

“It’s not working.”

Sullivan took it from Allen’s hands. “Did you land on it?”

“No. I’m sure I didn’t.”

“Then it should work, Frank. Where’d you get it?”

“I bought it back on Abilene. It calibrated to the ship just fine.”

Sullivan knitted his brow. “But it was on the ship when we were in hyperspace. It could have been tampered with.”

“You mean by Liz?”

“Yes.”

Allen opened his mouth to protest but closed it again. “God damn it,” he said quietly.

Sullivan sighed. “Can we fix it?” he asked, looking it over.

“I don’t know what’s wrong. I was able to send the ship away with it, so it does have some functionality. I’m just not able to call the ship back. And we don’t have the right equipment to diagnose the problem.”

Quinn looked from Allen to Sullivan. “You mean you’re stuck here?”

Sullivan looked at his watch. “Not quite. The ship is programmed to return to the point where we first disembarked in… seventy-four hours. Assuming that program hasn’t also been tampered with.”

Allen closed his eyes. “We have to at least try to get back. It took us five days to get here,” said Allen, “but that was at a pretty slow pace, not knowing what was in front of us. We should be able to get back in time now that we know the lay of the land.”

“How long will it wait for you?” asked Quinn.

“That’s not the issue,” said Sullivan. “It’ll sit there until we return to it, but we can’t risk letting anyone either take it or destroy it.”

Quinn nodded. “I know I would have tried to blow something like that up if I came across it without knowing about you.”

Allen pocketed the remote and looked up at Sullivan. “We’d better move, Rick.”

“No time for long goodbyes, I’m afraid,” said Sullivan, turning to Quinn. “The best of luck to you.”

Quinn shook Sullivan’s hand, then Allen’s. “And to you.”

They said their goodbyes to the rest of the men, and Sullivan began walking briskly in the direction they had come.

“What about the energy weapons?” Allen asked, catching up to him.

“Someone may be able to reverse engineer the technology, but this planet could still be a target of the aliens. It’ll come in handy if they’re attacked again.”