Page 60 of Trigger Discipline
Tommy’s hands were on Phin’s thigh, trying to get a look under all the blood. “I-I don’t know. I’m not Blake?—”
“Thank god for that,” Phin groaned, falling back against the cabinets. “Gabriel’d kill me if you were.”
Phin’s lame joke seemed to shake Tommy out of his insecurity. “He’s taken some shrapnel to the knee and inner thigh. I can’t tell how bad, but it’s not good.”
Gabriel was about to order them to find some cover, but it was Scott who spoke, “Get out.”
Tommy glanced up at him. Their eyes met in the rearview mirror. Gabriel nodded. “Get to some cover.”
Reloading his gun, he waited until Tommy had stuffed his pants with supplies before getting Phin out the back. “Maybe if we can?—”
“I said get out,” Scott’s voice was low, barely more than a scratchy growl. He was staring out of the crackedwindshield. “I’m going to create a distraction. Punch a hole through their line.”
“Scott, that’s a?—”
“I saidget out.” Scott turned to him. His blood was bright red against the white of his bandage. His eyes were wide and black. Bright with something Gabriel recognized. It made him recoil.
“If you think I’m going to let you?—”
Scott pulled out his handgun, leveling it at Gabriel’s face. His mouth was set in a grim line. “I won’t be the lone survivor. Get out of this ambulance.”
Gabriel stared down the barrel of the M9. It was like time froze, and all he could think wasnot again.He couldn’t let another young soldier die because he wasn’t enough. He wanted to grab the gun, twist it from Scott’s hand. He could. Scott was hardly in peak form. It wouldn’t take much to disarm him. Come up with a new plan.
But when he looked up from the gun to Scott’s eyes, he knew. It wouldn’t matter if he took this gun. There would be another.
Scott thumbed off the safety. “I wasn’t asking, Commander.”
Hands tightening around the stock of his gun, Gabriel swallowed back the selfish desire to protect himself. To prevent another set of hollow eyes from following him around. The weight of another life settling on his shoulders.
He stepped out of the ambulance and before he could even slam the door, it took off.
Lights and sirens screaming, Scott drove straight at the aliens. It didn’t take long for the first FUD to set its sights on it. The ambulance jarred onto two wheels as the quadruped launched onto the back. It fishtailed, but didn’t brake, speeding right between two Handlers.
Scott skidded through another FUD, flipping the ambulance before a perfect strike from a Handler hit the gastank. The ambulance exploded, sending metal and bits of tire in every direction.
The explosion took out two FUDs and one Handler. The National Guard Unit was able to retreat in the ensuing confusion. Even the falling electrical balls seemed to have stopped, and for a moment, there was the hush of quiet that seemed to fall after every battle—a false quiet, when the world wasn’t silent, but nothing could penetrate the ringing in your ears and the thrum of adrenaline pumping in your veins. The erratic, audible thumping of a heart against a plate carrier.
Even the aliens had stopped firing. They were still, as if waiting for something. The FUDs were still; heads cocked like a dog listening to a whistle only they could hear. Were they waiting for orders? That didn’t make sense. The drones seemed to be giving the orders and?—
He could hear it now. It wasn’t orders they were listening to.
Gabriel stiffened. His hands clenched on his gun, and he turned to run. He saw Tommy and Phin hiding behind a tangled pile of shopping carts that looked like they’d been welded to a light post. He dove behind them.
Tommy looked up from where he’d been bandaging Phin’s leg. “Where’s?—”
Gabriel wasn’t listening. Peering over their cover. If he held his breath, he could hear it.
Thundering. But not from the electrical ordinance. Not even from the sky. From the other side of the street. The thundering ofhundredsof feet.
He saw the first coming out of an alley. It was a quadruped, but smaller than a FUD. Its curved muscular back gave it a hunched, ungainly gait. The head of the creature was angular and flat, proportionally small to the rest of the creature. Large eyes took up most of its face, with a narrow nose crest and a bifurcated jaw with sharp hooks thatsplit to reveal rows and rows of impenetrable razor-sharp teeth.
The thing crept onto the street, its eyes twisting like a chameleon as it took in the scene. The strangely delicate pointed ears atop its ugly head twitched, long guard hairs on the points sticking straight up. Each one of its four limbs ended with four long toes capped with claws that solidly strafed the concrete.
Four more emerged from the alley. All as ugly and horrifying as the first.
Behind him, Tommy whined.
Gabriel tried to make sense of the situation, but sweat was dripping into his eyes, and his stomach was in knots.More of them?No. He quickly wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand. No, these things were different. The FUDs, Handlers, and drones were more metallic-looking. Like shitty robots off a B movie. These things were flesh and blood.