Sam supposed it was entirely possible they could have made the approach in the accompaniment of a brass band and it wouldn’t have garnered any attention. The aliens seemed far too involved in their work: walking around, engaged in various tasks, none of which Sam understood. She saw, though, that there appeared to be two different types of them, perhaps arranged along some manner of caste system. There was one who appeared to be in charge: the commander. He was taller, his armor a different color from others, who were broader and mostly involved in doing the serious grunt work.
Watching their movements, Cal whispered, “They’re connecting what I think are the power cells that are going to be required to boost the transmission. They’re wiring everything to the satellite dishes.”
“Then that,” Mick said, “is where we’re going to shut this whole thing down.”
He crawled forward toward the edge of the hill where the drop-off would take them down toward the building. He brought his shotgun up to bear, aiming it squarely at one of the shorter aliens. Sam was right beside him, and then they were brought up short when they heard loud breathing behind them.
They turned and saw that Cal Zapata hadn’t budged. Instead he was busy hyperventilating—or at least very close to doing so.
Mick looked scornfully at him, clearly in no mood to deal with a faint-of-heart scientist. He met Sam’s gaze, and she quickly shook her head, silently imploring him to hold up. She didn’t see any choice; they needed to peel Cal off the metaphorical ceiling before they could proceed any further, as he was crucial to their overall plans of contacting Hopper’s ship. Mick looked like he desperately wanted to ignore her, but then—with clear reluctance and a poisonous glare at Cal—he lowered the shotgun.
They remained where they were as another transport passed overhead, lights glaring. It didn’t illuminate their hiding place, fortunately, thanks to an overhanging tree that obscured their presence from overhead. Must be bringing another power cell, she thought grimly.
The workroom that was the destination of the three humans was visible from their vantage point, so that was something, at least. But it might as well have been on Mars—or even whatever planet these creatures hailed from—for all that they were going to be able to get near it… at least for as long as Cal was proving himself to be completely useless.
The scientist clutched at his chest, trying to steady himself. She prayed he didn’t have a heart attack. That was the last thing they needed. They wouldn’t be able to seek help for him and would probably have to leave him to his fate. Except she wasn’t at all convinced they could possibly do what needed to be done without his scientific acumen. Some part of her was appalled she was measuring the worth of a man’s life purely in terms of how it was useful to her, but ultimately she knew she didn’t have a choice. At this point all that mattered was the mission.
“I’m sorry, but there is no way I’m going down there,” Cal finally managed to say. “I do not possess that particular courage.”
Sam was determined to talk him into it. There was an entire litany of things she could say. She could tell him that the world was literally counting on them, even though no one knew their names. She could tell him that she was positive he had vast stores of inner determination that could be tapped, enabling him to rise to the occasion. She could remind him that, since it was his project that had brought these creatures here, it was his responsibility to jump into the middle of this thing with both feet. To clean up the mess he and his scientist friends had made. She could even remind him that if he showed timidity now, then in the long term his life wasn’t going to matter, since—if they failed to interrupt or, better yet, terminate the aliens’ message home—the planet would be overrun and he likely wouldn’t have a long term or a life. So if he wanted a chance of survival, he needed to pull it together right now.
Before she could articulate any of that, however, Mick said between gritted teeth, “You’re going to acquire that particular courage right now, or I’m going to break my steel leg off in your ass.”
Cal absorbed this new information. “Acquiring courage,” he said briskly, as if he were downloading it off the Internet.
Sam realized that out-and-out threatening the guy hadn’t occurred to her. I’ve just got to broaden my repertoire of techniques for dealing with stubborn people.
They started moving down toward the workstation.
Their stealth served them well. They covered the distance to the simple, square building in a fairly short amount of time, or at least in as short a time as possible when one was crawling on one’s stomach, propelling oneself via elbows. Sam had to think she would never freak out about snakes again, considering they had to live like this all the time.
They froze at one point, when one of the bulky aliens walked by. It stopped and stood there for a moment, seemingly inspecting the air. Sam wondered if it had somehow caught wind of them, and perhaps was even about to open fire. But then, seemingly satisfied that it was alone, it went on about its business. It was all she could do not to breathe a sigh of relief, which would most certainly have been audible. Once the alien was gone, Cal and Sam got to their feet, remaining hunched over as if that would do them the slightest bit of good, and ran quickly to the side door of the darkened structure. Mick remained where he was, keeping his weapon at the ready. If this thing turned into a firefight, he was definitely prepared for it. Sam even wondered briefly if he was hoping it would turn out that way, because these monsters had destroyed a military base and she was sure that Mick was itching for some payback.
Once inside, Sam continued to stay crouched, keeping an eye on things. She saw Mick propped on his elbows, shotgun at the ready. Cal was rooting around in the work area, which more or less took up the entirety of the building. They didn’t dare turn on any lights since that would unquestionably catch the attention of the aliens. Instead Cal was employing a flashlight that they’d taken from the Jeep, but was doing so as judiciously as possible. He kept low to the floor, making sure not to get anywhere near a window that would allow the light to be seen from outside.
And then, as she peered around the corner, she saw the taller alien, the one she took to be the commander, slowly striding their way.
Reflexively she sucked in air sharply between her teeth. The alien didn’t hear her, but Cal did, and he froze where he was, near stacks of equipment. Even in the darkness she could see the panic in his eyes. She frantically gestured for him to keep his mouth shut.
The alien stopped a few feet away and slowly removed its helmet, accompanied by a hissing of air. She saw the creature’s hideous, inhuman face and bit down on her lower lip not to let out a loud screech. There was no reason for her to be startled at this point. She knew what she was dealing with. Freaking out upon seeing it so close up wasn’t going to help matters in the slightest.
It brought some manner of narrow tube to its mouth, closed its eyes and then lit the tube with a blue flame.
Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me. Of all the things that these creatures and humanity could have in common, that’s where we overlap? On cancer sticks? Really?
Cal had stopped what he was doing so that he could peer out the nearest window as carefully as possible. When he saw what was happening, he scuttled over to Sam and said, practically in her ear, “I do not wanna die from secondhand alien smoke.”
“One thing at a time,” Sam shot back under her breath. “How long is this going to take?”