Chris Lowry [Lowry - Infiltrate

INFILTRATE

Invasion EARTH series

by

Chris Lowry

Chapter 1

"Honey, it's time to get up."

Her hand on his shoulder felt soft and warm. He could feel the scratch of her nails against his skin, trailing across his shoulder and down his chest.

"Morning," he mumbled, voice distorted by a yawn and stretch.

"You're late," she said.

Her brown hair cascaded around her cheeks, framing eyes he couldn't help but get lost in everytime he stared at her. He could feel his excitement, a growing urge as her hands pressed harder into his skin.

"We don't have time for that," she teased. "You have to get up."

He reached for her, gripped her shoulders and pulled her in for a kiss.

She punched him.

Lt sat up and screamed. A woman he didn't recognize shook her bloody knuckles as she leaned back from him. He didn't know where he was, just that it was cold.

His armor was gone, the suit chest plate beside him on a metal floor. He nursed an aching jaw with the back of his hand.

"What the fuck did you do that for?" he squinted at the woman kneeling in front of him.

"You fucking tried to kiss me, you mook."

He squinted harder. She had short blond hair that looked like it had been hacked with a knife, thin cheeks from caloric depletion, and a scar that ran across her face that looked like hot metal had sliced and seared it.

"You're not my type," he shot back and glanced down at his torso. "You make a habit of dry humping guys you strip while they're passed out?"

The memory of his wife cleared his head and he realized he wasn't dead. Again.

"Where the fuck am I?"

"We're gonna answer your twenty questions later," he heard a voice in a shadowed corridor say.

Lt tried to move. That is to say, he willed his legs to move, but they didn't respond, not at first. His arms felt heavy, leaden, and his head ached.

"Why can't I move."

"Nineteen left," the woman answered.

The guy in the shadows stepped out. He was shorter than the woman, just as thin, his black hair streaked with grey. No scars marred his face, just worry lines and wrinkles.

"You're suffering from a couple of things as far as we can tell. You can thank Annie for saving your life. Mouth to mouth and CPR."

"You kiss like a girl," Lt said.

She raised an eyebrow and curled her lip.

"Is that a joke? Did you just joke with the woman who saved your life?"

Lt pushed up and got one leg under him. It took a lot of effort, more than he cared to admit, to stand up, and he almost toppled over, but caught himself with one hand against a freezing wall.

"Joke's on you," he said. "My momma says I'm the best kisser in the whole county."

This time the lip curled into a smile that resembled a snarl. But her dark eyes sparkled.

"We haven't had many jokes up here in a long time," she said and held out here hand. "Annie."

He made sure one hand held onto the wall, so he wouldn't fall and shook with the other, two quick pumps for fear more would send him tumbling to the deck.

"Lt. William Bonney."

"Bill-" she started to say.

"Don't call me the kid," he cut her off. "Lt will do. Bonney if you like, I'll answer to either. Nice to meet you, Annie Warbucks. Now want to tell me where the fuck I am?"

"Short term memory loss is a symptom of oxygen deprivation," said the short man. "Captain Dawes. You're on my ship. Welcome to the Bezos."

CHAPTER 2

He hated looking at the stars, but since the aliens arrived and stole the power that turned nighttime into day, it was all he could see.

He had been among them, though unable to look out at the time, and more concerned about staying alive than the winking blinking galactic signposts outside the window. The first time was a trip to Mars courtesy of a tribunal that sentenced him to conscription.

That had been in a cargo ship hold, among other prisoners, packed in tight like cattle and dropped into a protected atmosphere to fight or die. They didn't expect him to live, but he did, the only survivor of a conflict known as Citadel.

Staying alive had made him an urban legend, though Weber knew he was just lucky. Too many close calls to be anything other than that.

He survived Mars, the battle for the Red Planet as a holding line against the onslaught of an alien invasion. And when that was lost, he stole a ship, he and Renard, the only survivors of the last Martian conflict known as Beachhead.

They stole a ship and he was more concerned with flying it, with keeping the wounded vessel from imploding or decompressing as they limped home, than he was in the stars.

Then they crashed on Earth, at night, with only the stars for company until a group of human refugees pulled them from the wreckage. They lived, but it wasn't an earth they had known. The aliens arrived first and destroyed all technology with some unknown means.

Weber suspected that was a partial reason for the crash. He and Renard had keyed in the landing sequence in a pre-programmed computer designed to deliver them to an airstrip in the Mojave Desert. More sand than he cared to see, but atmosphere, and with it, no space suits.

But things went sideways in the descent which delivered them to some flyover state in the middle.

He hated the stars. They mocked him.

At least my leg doesn't hurt, he thought. His hand drifted down to massage the ghost ache from pure habit, fingers tapping against the hard shell of the Gen One armor he wore.

He had learned to live with the pain of the crash, broken bones knit in crooked lines, ripped nerves that stayed numb. But the nanobot packed suits removed the pain. Knit the bones. Healed his body.

They couldn't help his mind though.

There probably would never be enough help for that, he shrugged and continued to glare at winking Polaris.

Renard found him, moved to stand beside him and didn't say a word.

After they shared Beachhead, they didn't need to say much. The crash cemented it. Any one you could walk away from was a blessing, but walking away with a comrade in arms meant something special.

"You trust this kid?" Renard said after minutes of shared silence.

"No," Weber sighed.

And that was part of what troubled him too. Not just the memories of battles gone and lost, nor of the fight to prepare the resistance to rise up against the Licks.

It was the kid.

"The others do," said Renard.

"I don't think they do," Weber answered.

He had yet to approach it with Babe, the second who assumed command when the Lt went missing on a rescue mission to save one of his squad.

Weber thought missing, even though he was told the Lt was dead. They all were.

Still, the kid called Chief was the one who told him. Told them.

And if he didn't trust the kid, should he believe that too.

"I almost expect the Lt to come marching up the road, bitching about how many aliens he had to kill by himself," said Weber.

"He killed a lot," Renard sighed. "A lot more than we did, if he can be believed."

"He can," said the older man.

A gloved hand went up to run his fingers through his long hair, but it was tucked in the helmet and the reflective visor was down. Second nature, he snorted and still ran the glove over the thick dome topping his head.

"Are you going to the meeting?"

Weber sighed.

"We will," he made the decision for both of them. Not out of superiority or rank, but out of comfort. He knew Renard would follow his lead, even though the man could think for himself. They had been working together that long.

"It won't work."

"I know," said Weber. "We heard the arguments at home, before. This one wanted to unite to fight, and that one thought it would be a good idea to band together. The Licks showed them though."