CHAPTER TWENTY
The alien warriors walked away from the battle and cloaked. Cassandra and the others saw their backs for only a moment before the creatures turned invisible in the darkness of the early night.
So, drawing an imaginary line in the direction that the aliens had stalked off, the group walked on, slowly pursuing the unusual, deadly visitors.
The groups' energy had died down as fatigue took over. They walked slowly and warily, with much less enthusiasm than they had before.
Exhaustion was setting in since they had not truly rested in many long hours. Cassandra wondered if the aliens were getting fatigued at all, as they seemed to have been killing non-stop since they were first noticed three days ago.
She struggled to keep her eyes open as she trudged through the woods and came out into a clearing and walked more.
They took to a street and strode down a hill, past a large lake that caught the moonlight in its ripples. The area was silent, not even a cricket was chirping. There was simply no sound, no breeze, no sense of any other life than the humans that walked wearily down the hilly street.
Cassandra glanced from time to time into the night sky. Through the clouds she could see a few stars and the moon shining brightly down on them. She found herself idly wondering which star the aliens had come from.
Her curiosity kept her mind running and for a while she was able to forget about her heavy eyelids and tired feet.
Not sure where the aliens had headed, the group did their best to try to follow their imaginary line and hoped that the creatures had not deterred from that path. They marched up an exit ramp and took to a highway three miles outside of the small town.
She looked at the signs above her head and noted the miles listed to the next town and the next large city after that. She sighed a little as she thought about how far the group had walked over the winter months; how far they had gone simply to survive.
She felt like a nomad, carrying with her only what she needed to survive, weapons being the utmost important followed by water and food. She remembered a time when they started to try to head south towards the warmer climate of places like Texas and New Mexico, in fear of freezing to death in the winter with no good way to keep warm.
However, because the weather had made traveling difficult enough and combined with the ever-present threat of the bug drones that never gave up regardless of temperatures, the group never made it as far as they hoped.
Now, as a cool springtime rain began to drizzle then pour down on the group, Cassandra barely even noticed how cold and shivering she was. Her several layers of clothing provided her adequate protection and her calf high leather boots were impervious to water, so her feet stayed dry and warm.
The rain poured down harder and harder and thunder began to roll across the sky, accompanied by occasional bolts of lightning as the hours ticked on and the group continued their search of the aliens well into the middle of the night.
None of the group seemed in the least concerned with the weather. They had much more on their minds at that moment than just getting a little wet. Adapting to the elements was difficult, though.
They had seen their share of weather related fatalities but not so many compared to the death and destruction the drones brought with them.
The group learned to survive using their wits more than their weapons, and Cassandra was proud that they had come so far against such adversities. She now wondered what tomorrow might bring, in the path of the mysterious alien warriors.
She walked on silently, forcing her weary legs to keep pace with the group around her. Lewis stayed quiet, only occasionally glancing to her and to Carlos, but mostly he kept his eyes straight ahead and seemed lost in thought much of the walk.
Carlos, too, seemed lost in his own mind. His eyes were fixed on the road in front of him as though he too was wondering where the next minutes might take them.
Cassandra found herself delving into her own thoughts once more about where their path might lead. She knew what she hoped it would lead to, but she wondered where it actually went.
Was this the path that led to the end of the war? Perhaps this road led to the end of their lives.
There was a time where Cassandra really could have cared less if the road she was on did lead to the end of her life.
There had been many narrow escapes and desperate moments over the last few months that made her question how it was that she was even still alive.
Sometimes she was not grateful to be alive, for it seemed so pointless. Nothing in her life that she had hoped to achieve would be a reality for her, so it was easy to lose her way amongst the hives and question what reasons there were to live.
She spent many long nights and days, holding out in dark buildings, away from the sun and the outside world, contemplating what kind of a life she was living for, and what end she truly thought would come from all of this.
The idea of living through such horrors only to die in the midst of a meaningless battle against an enemy that would eventually completely cover the face of the planet and annihilate all life from its surface seemed so insignificant to her. It seemed utterly meaningless.
There were many times where she was certain that no good end would come off all of this, that there was no escape other than death, and that all one could live for was to hope to die without becoming a host.
She had seen what happens to animals and humans impregnated by the face huggers. She had been there while Carlos tried with all his might to save those that had been impregnated, but in the end, each one met a gruesome death and she was forced to accept that the only salvation she could give those that had been impregnated was to kill them; to kill the hosts and their hellish offspring.
It was not an easy thing to do, to look in the eye of a person that was only trying to survive and pull the trigger, knowing there could be no other course of action taken, and knowing that allowing one more of the nightmarish monsters to be spawned would be an ultimate sin against humanity.
There were times when the group would come across living animals that had been infected. At times like that pulling the trigger was not as difficult to do as butchering the beasts that they had shot to eat some fresh food, cooked over small campfires inside whatever building they were hiding out in.
The first time Cassandra sliced the skin off the animal she shot and carved the meat off of his carcass, she felt nauseous and was nearly unwilling to eat the meat.
Never having eaten anything that did come out of saran wrap at the grocery store or served to her on a well decorated platter, the first time her hand got bloody from chopping raw flesh and muscle off the bones of a freshly killed animal, she cried.
The second time it was not so wretched of an event, for it had been many weeks since she ate a decent meal, and she was hungry.
Now, it had been so long since she had even seen a living creature, she questioned whether there was even any animal life left on the planet, or if she'd ever have the chance to eat their meat again.
At least seeing the alien warriors tearing through drones, queens, and hives with little loss gave Cassandra a renewed sense of hope for a good ending to the nightmare they were all living.
The alien fighters seemed to her like the perfect match against the drones. Although she, along with the others, could not possibly imagine why they were there, she was sure that with their efforts, humanity would rise once more.
She let her mind drift to the warriors again, and the gray skinned warrior commander that she had eyed before filled her mind.
She admired the warriors immediately. They stood strong against massive waves of drones that the military couldn't defeat even with tanks.
But yet the warriors had only lost two of their ranks during their destruction of hives and their queens, drones, and egg fields that she had seen so far, and they did it by hand, on foot, and with armor that left much of their bodies exposed.
They fought ferociously against the drone armies and like brutal conquerors, left rotting battlefields in their wakes. The air stunk like acid and thick musk where the warriors walked and Cassandra was sure she was catching that heavy smell on the wind once more as she strode down the roadway with her group.
Suddenly a booming noise echoed through the skies above their heads like the loudest clap of angry thunder Cassandra had ever heard in her life. The group halted abruptly and dropped defensively to the ground.
For a moment Cassandra thought that the sky was falling. The gray clouds in the night air turned a blazing bright orange for a flicker of a second and a loud whirring noise filled her ears. She covered her ears and looked up, partially fearful of what she might see, but her eyes registered on the site and she felt her jaw drop.
A massive ship glided over their heads probably only a mile or so up in the sky. It zoomed by the group on the highway so quickly Cassandra felt the breeze from the engines blow through her long hair.
A bright light shone down from somewhere on the belly of the ship and scanned the ground like a giant searchlight. The light seemed to focus on an area not more than a couple miles ahead.
The giant star ship, at least as wide as a football field was shaped like a jagged edged football. It's sleek, curving outer shell dropped off in the back and formed a straight line down to the engines that sat on the sides of the vessel just up from its belly.
Cassandra noticed some sort of extending arm dropping out from the front and rear of the belly of the vessel. The ship swerved off towards where the spot light had focused and as the stunned group watched from the highway, the ship sank closer and closer to the ground until it disappeared behind the trees.
"They're landing," Cassandra gasped quickly.
"They're bringing reinforcements," Lewis said in agreement.
"Uh, that's a bad thing, right?" Another in the group asked uncertainly.
"Yeah, it means even they know they're fucked." Someone else retorted.
"Let's go!" Lewis prompted the group and they quickly sprinted down the highway.
The landing site was a little further than Cassandra had at first suspected. She watched the mile markers tick by ever so slowly and she felt like it was taking an eternity to reach their destination.
Disregarding her tired feet and weary eyelids, she put on another burst of speed as her adrenaline charged up through her veins. In a moment another flash of light in the sky caught the group's attention and they halted once more to watch.
This burst between the clouds was much further away, but the group could clearly see another alien ship coming out of the sky. This vessel, though shaped similarly as the first one, was much smaller. It sped across the sky towards the first vessel's landing site, gliding to a halt before descending straight down.
"Look," a woman in the group called out.
Cassandra turned with the rest towards the woman and followed her finger as it swayed in the air from point to point to point. More vessels, both large and small, were breaking through the cloud cover, each one splaying off in different directions, until they flew out of site.
"Is this an invasion?" The woman asked worriedly.
"That's already happened." A man responded.
"We were infested, not invaded." Another corrected.
"What the hell's the difference?" He protested back. "They're all aliens."
Cassandra glanced at the man, wondering if they were indeed invaded the first time around. She watched as several more ships broke through the night sky. One more smaller vessel sailed over to the same place as the first two and descended towards the ground.
"They're having a freakin' landing party," someone in the group stated.
"Let's keep moving. Let's see what's going on," Lewis said flatly.
Cassandra caught up to him and as they walked quickly on course down the highway weaving through some of the vehicles that were abandoned forever in the roadways.
"Lewis, what are you thinking?" Cassandra asked of him.
"I just want to know what's happening."
"Why do you think they're here?" She questioned.
"I don't know, Cassy. Do you really think they're coming here to save us?"
She looked him square in the eye as she powered her walk down the dirty roadway.
"Yes, I do."
Lewis shook his head and a frustrated smile crossed his lips. He obviously did not agree with her, but he fell silent and discussed it no more with her as he walked.
Cassandra thought to herself as she headed towards the landing site. Why else would they be here?
She wondered how it was they even knew that there was such a problem happening on the planet's surface, so she assumed they must have been watching somehow.
Lewis seemed angered by arrival after arrival of each new ship, and Cassandra knew from their previous conversations that he fell into the group of people that instantly hated the aliens for their sudden arrival and disregarding behavior towards the humans of Earth.
Cassandra still hoped that the alien warriors were there to help the humans, she could not think of another reason for their presence. They had obviously not intended harm towards the humans, even when they had ample opportunity to do so.
Perhaps the initial group they had been following after had called for help and these were the reinforcements arriving full force. In any case she could feel her excitement growing.
If just a handful of the strange alien warriors were capable of such destruction in just a few days, she could barely imagine what an entire army of their kind could do. Perhaps there was an end in sight after all, and perhaps it was one that would not result in the total annihilation of all mankind.
Finally, the group reached the landing site. They crouched low against the concrete guardrail over a bridge that looked down into a wide valley of open crop fields beyond a river and the images they saw were so amazingly provocative, Cassandra could feel the energy from the group shift from shock to awe to confusion, intermixed with fear and even anger.
Eight vessels had landed in the fields of the valley below the bridge. Two were very large and the rest were smaller. The larger vessels were carefully positioned far enough away from the center of the fields, while the smaller ships, obviously being more maneuverable were piled close to one another in a semi circular fashion.
In the center of the landing area stood a small army of the armored alien warriors.
Cassandra could see their metallic body armor and oddly decorated beads in their ropy hair reflecting in the lights cast off from the space ships around them. Cassandra thought there were at least two hundred if not more of the giant aliens.
Each one was heavily armed and ready for battle. The weapons they carried or had mounted to their armor varied from large hand held machine gun looking weapons to spears and bladed weapons on short and long handles.
Combined with their size, their armor, and adding their choice of weapons to the picture, the creatures looked simply barbaric and brutal. They looked like an unstoppable exterminating force that had obviously been well versed in their enemy.
There were large groups of aliens standing in rows in front of their ships as they walked off, and pacing in a small circle in front of all the new arrivals was a small group of what Cassandra could only have imagined where their commanders.
She stretched her neck and strained to see a little closer to try to take in more detail as she scanned the commanding group that awaited the new ranks to finish filing in to the open field from the ships.
"Let's get closer," Cassandra whispered, fearless and curious.
Lewis cast her a wide disbelieving look and considered her for a moment before he nodded and started to lead to the group down the highway towards a spot where they could climb over the guardrail and descend to the lower ground.
Cassandra marched so quickly along, she soon out passed Lewis, hurrying towards her destination. The group picked up their pace as they strutted down a hill not far from the landing zone. They bolted across a grassy field along a street until they began to approach the far edge of the crop fields where the landing party was organizing.
The group huddled in the trees, keeping their distance from the massive alien army, but each still trying to get the best view point they could without getting too close.
Cassandra, Lewis, and Carlos ducked into a small cove of trees just at the edge of the field. While Lewis and Carlos saw what they could from their crouched positions, Cassandra stood tall and craned her neck and chin high, trying to see all that she could, despite words of warning from Lewis.
She glanced to the trees around her to see if she could climb into one to get a better view yet, but the scrawny trunks offered no way to climb them. She stared at the formation between two of the smaller landed vessels, and when a loud undefinable voice rang out over the noisy crowd and the alien warriors fell silent and stood square, Cassandra was able to get a better view.
She was certain the small group in the middle of all the ranks were various leaders. Amongst them she suddenly saw the commander of the group that she had been tailing.
She watched him glare over his ranks, holding his mask under his arm. His mandibles ticked together but he did not appear to be saying anything, rather simply evaluating the troops around him. As he paced out of sight, Cassandra saw another of the group of eight leaders in the middle pace through the opening between the ships.
She watched another of the alien warriors descend from a ramp. The group of commanders, Cassandra noticed, seemed to clear out of the way and give the other one plenty of space. She was certain, even from this distance, that the armored warrior she spied now was female.
The being's slick hair was equally as long as some of the male fighters and her facial features were no more feminine than the rest of the troops, but Cassandra was certain that she saw breasts under the chest armor of this figure.
She looked taller than her male counterparts, but equally aggressive in appearance and clearly well-armed. The female leader paced the group in a circular fashion until she was out sight. All in all, the commanders organized their armies into one.
A total of fifteen leaders seemed to converge in the center, each heading up their own groups, out of them, six were female.
Cassandra watched each warrior pace by her viewpoint through the ships and noted the differences in each one's armor, weaponry, and over all features.
Each of the leaders, though armored for battle, had an ornate and almost ceremonial look to them and Cassandra noticed that the female she was certain was speaking, or at least making some sort of incomprehensible vocalizations that the rest of the ranks seemed to comprehend, was wearing a finely adorned cape that draped over her wide, muscular shoulders and flowed richly behind her as she circled in front of the troops.
"What do you think they're doing?" Cassandra whispered.
"Getting ready for war," Lewis said quickly and certainly.
"I hope to hell they don't decide to fight us too," Carlos added.
"No, they're here to kill the drones," Cassandra thought aloud.
"You don't know that, Cassy," Lewis warned.
"They would have killed us already," she said glancing from Lewis back to the alien warriors and noticing the familiar gray-skinned male commander once more.
She eyed him for a moment and frowned, uncertain where his eyes were focusing on, but they did not seem to be looking at the readying warriors around him. His head was turned in her direction, but his deep set eyes were well hidden in the shadows between the lights.
She felt her skin ripple as she questioned silently whether he had spotted his watchers in the trees beyond the landing field and found herself wondering if the entire group was totally aware that they had human spectators scattered around the field watching them.
"They've…They've had plenty of opportunity." She finished her thought after a brief pause, while keeping her eyes locked on the gray-haired commander.
Lewis did not seem content with her opinion and grunted something under his breath, but she did not pay attention. The caped female continued her throaty noises and rallied the troops.
She raised her staff into the air, tipped her chin up and spread her four outer mandibles straight out towards the stars and howled a deadly call into the air. Quickly the others resounded the sound, howling into the night, making their presence known to all that could hear them.
There was a heavy scent in the air, like anticipation riding on the wind, falling down on the alien party with the rain from the sky. The musk in the breeze made the cool spring night feel like a humid southern summer and the anxiety and eagerness in the group of alien warriors was so ripe it was tangible.
Cassandra felt her own energy rising up. She had forgotten about how tired she was from lack of sleep and almost constant migrating. She had forgotten how hungry she was, she had lost all care about the limited ammunition supply that she carried with her. She was ready to join them; the aliens; the resistance fighters.
The creatures howled on one long breath until the last of their voices faded off and they pulled their spears and rifles back to their sides, and their hair that whipped around their shoulders as they cried settled back flat against their armored bodies, the jewels and bands in their locks clicking slightly against each other as they settled.
Without another sound the aliens broke off into many smaller parties.
Cassandra watched as groups of ten, fifteen, twenty, shuffled off in different directions.
She saw many more female warriors, ready to fight, pulling back into their obviously assigned groups.
Though none of the aliens made any noise as they departed in different directions, they seemed to know exactly where to go and what to do and within a minute's time, the first of the groups was trotting off, camouflaging themselves into invisibility as they darted off into the darkness.
Cassandra watched some of the other groups file into their own different areas as their commanders readied them for battle. She saw a few more individuals, less well armored, disappear back into the vessels around the fields.
The remaining groups of aliens began to move well clear of the vessels, some spreading out deep into the fields while others turned their camouflage on and disappeared. The loud whirs of the vessels' engines filled the area, growing louder as the turbines that drove the vessels powered up.
Cassandra's eyes set on a group of aliens that were pulling back away from the readying to depart ships and were drawing dangerously near to where she, Lewis, and Carlos huddled in the small cove of trees.
She saw the backs of two aliens as they stepped backward and stopped barely fifty feet from where she and the others crouched.
Commanding this familiar looking group was the gray skinned leader. She felt the hairs on her neck stand on end once more and thought she could sense somehow, that the alien knew she and the others were there, in that cove of trees, hidden in the fields, circled around the army landing site, watching in awe.
It was much more than coincidence she thought, that he took his group to that particular spot to organize them. He turned his head towards the small cove of trees as he locked his sleek helmet onto his head.
"Oh shit," Lewis whispered quickly as he and Carlos sank closer to the ground and drew back a little further.
Cassandra did not move, but she felt Lewis' hand tug on her jacket cuff. He hissed a wary warning to her to drop out of sight, but she remained where she stood and stretched against the spindly tree next to her shoulder.
The leader turned to his troops in a moment, though now they all seemed to be glancing towards the trees. Cassandra knew they knew they were there.
She swallowed as she stared at the alien commander as he readied his bladed staff and stood squarely in front of his group. Some more of the odd noises ran out from under his helmet.
Cassandra quickly decided that the strange throaty sounds must have been the aliens' language, for the commander's group seemed to be quite keen in hearing the strange sounds.
After the wave of alien noises ended, the commander's troops growled and called to one another, obviously revved up and ready for the battle. Cassandra found herself ignoring Lewis' continued harshly whispered calls as she slid her foot forward, steadily eyeing the group's leader curiously.
The few trees offered her little cover as she crept a few feet closer to get a better looked. Neither the alien leader nor his group seemed to pay her any mind.
She was not significant enough to attract their attention, she supposed. Although she knew they had seen her and her party in the trees, she could easily tell they were completely uninterested in any of them.
The vessels around the landing site began to take to the air one after another. Their engines whirred and some of the smaller ships blew off a fiery blast as they shot into the air with incredible speed.
The larger ships pulled straight off the ground until they were both well clear of the trees and they turned their noses towards the cloudy night sky and zoomed off into the rain. Cassandra turned her eyes away from the group of aliens near her long enough to watch in wonder the mysterious ships head off into the sky.
She saw their lights growing ever smaller as they quickly accelerated into the clouds, but she was certain she could still see the vessels hovering far above the planet's surface.
Her eyes gently rolled across the night sky and she absorbed the sights that her limited vision would allow for her to absorb. She could see no less than a dozen tiny lights hovering all across the dark sky, floating idly amongst the clouds.
She pressed her eyebrows together and watched the distant vessel lights glow in the sky. She had no doubt that the vessels were going to hold where they were so they could return to the ground at some point to gather their troops.
It was a wise choice, she decided, and it confirmed her suspicions that the aliens had an intimate knowledge of the bugs that they battled with.
Even the alien warriors knew that if they left their vessels on the ground, it would open them up to infestation by the bugs.
She found herself also wondering if the aliens were keeping their ships off the ground to keep out human stowaways as well and suspected that had something to do with the reason for their orbit. That too, she decided, was a wise choice.
Her mind flickered to thoughts of stowing aboard an alien craft, escaping the infested, dying world she called home, and flying through the stars. A delicate smile formed on her lips, but quickly faded away as thoughts of an all out war amongst humans for the alien's technology filtered into her mind.
She could see the possibility, and she was soon wondering what kind of turmoil the aliens' arrival had sparked in the surviving colonies of humans that she suspected were scattered throughout the country and world. Surely the aliens had arrived in mass force and deployed troops throughout all the lands.
Another smile crossed her lips as she imagined the aliens' victory cheer rising up through a rainy night sky, having destroyed every hive, every bug, every queen, everywhere.
As the rain tapped against her face and a deep rumble of thunder rolled over head, Cassandra was brought out of the stars and she turned her eyes back towards the alien group. They were beginning to depart.
The commander stood at the side of the formation, overlooking his troops through the depth less black eyepieces of his helmet.
As the group followed their orders and began to stride off, the alien leader cocked his head slightly towards Cassandra and very obviously gestured with a pointing finger to direct her away. She and the leader exchanged eye contact for a split second and he grumbled some kind of throaty sound, and whipped his beaded gray hair behind him as he spun sharply on his heels and took to the front of the group.
Once again, the aliens faded into darkness as their bodies turned invisible and they walked away.
"Cassandra!" Lewis whispered sharply once the aliens were well out of sight. "Cassandra!"
He grabbed her arm abrasively as he moved in on her, glancing in the direction of the path of the aliens. She tore her eyes away from the invisible trail of the alien warriors and stared through a frown at Lewis.
"What do you think you're doing?" He questioned grittily. "You're going to get yourself killed."
She smiled at him and gently shook her head. "No, no. I won't."
Lewis clenched his jaws and audibly grinded his teeth.
Carlos stared at Cassandra in wide eyed wonder, either in fear for her bravery, or in awe of her stupidity, she was not sure. She was certain now more than ever that the aliens were not going to harm her or any other human, and she was not sure why Lewis and Carlos could not see that.
She tried to convince them both, through a whispered voice, that the aliens were not the enemy. She was certain that they had come to save them, although she could not begin to imagine exactly why.
As the trio walked through the crushed down crop field and regrouped with the rest of the amazed human survivors, Lewis turned a closed ear to Cassandra's enthusiastic acceptance of the aliens.
She noticed through her own excited words that many of the others in the group were also contending with their own mixed feelings on what they had witnessed. No one had any question that the alien army was there to eliminate the bugs, but they could not agree, or imagine, on why and how they came to be.
Many feared that the aliens were a threat to mankind, while few shared in Cassandra's thoughts that the aliens were no danger to humanity and deserved the right to a benefit of a doubt.
The group soon debated argumentatively amongst each other as to what to do next. They looked to Lewis for support and suggestion. He remained contemplatively quiet, clearly deep in thought and seemed to be raging his own mixed emotion war inside his head.
Cassandra stood fast to suggest that the group follow the aliens that they had tracked to that spot. She pointed towards the path that the creatures went, and tried to convince the group that they would be safer following in the aliens' path than holding out on their own.
Several members of the group cast her off like a silly young girl that had no idea what she was talking about. Cassandra felt her heart beat stronger with every passing minute and soon her excitement got the better of her. She turned and stalked away from the group.
Carlos jabbed Lewis in the arm, and his eyes lifted off the toes of his beaten down brown boots. He spied Cassandra leaving, following in the footsteps of the alien group.
Slightly rolling his eyes, he darted after her and pulled her to a quick halt. The group fell silent as they watched Lewis and Cassandra quietly exchange words. Lewis walked away from her and Cassandra held her spot, watching with an angry flare in her eyes. He walked over to Carlos and quietly whispered his intentions to him.
"We're going to follow the aliens."
"What?" Someone nearby overheard and questioned aggressively. "There's a god damned alien army out there, and a war on the horizon, and you're going to march off into it?"
"I think she's right. If we follow with them, we stand a chance." Lewis said with certainty.
"We've been standing a chance," another argued quickly. "Without them."
Lewis nodded and licked his lips.
He glanced back to wide eyed and waiting Cassandra and she eagerly turned her head in the aliens' wake as though she was trying not lose sight of the already long gone, invisible aliens.
He could feel his heart racing as he ran through any of a hundred scenarios in his mind. Each time, he too, ended up at the same conclusion. He turned back to the group with a certain authoritative tone in his voice that had not been used in quite a long time.
"We stand a chance to win, not just survive. We get our world back."
"What if they want it for themselves?" The first man questioned with a confused and angry look on his face.
Carlos stepped forward, "Then they would have killed us all already."
Cassandra waited impatiently while the group discussed their options, from the very second they were living, to the unforeseeable end, and all that had been leading up to that point. It was a heated, but brief discussion and the group eventually saw through Lewis's eyes, who was looking on some level, through Cassandra's.
They may not have all believed in why they were following the alien warriors, and they might not all have been following for the same reasons, but they all turned as a group, some with great fear and uncertainty, others with a sense of hope and wonder, and followed in the path of the warrior visitors.
Cassandra paced quickly along the route, Lewis keeping to her side, but saying nothing. They sped through the rainy night air, forgetting once more about their own exhaustion as they powered along, trying to trace the route of the alien group that they trailed.
The thunder continued on and grew ever louder and as the hours drew on. The soaking wet and desperately tired group felt as though they were walking mindlessly, chasing something that they were not sure was not a dream after all.
They had left the crop field and strode through a rural street, following it clear through one small town and past another large farming area until they had come to the edge of a city. There was a familiar stench in the air, one that they had learned to avoid, but now were pressing closer to.
As they drew closer to a hive area, they could smell the heavy odor of rotted flesh in the air. The scent sent a shiver of fear and repulsion through Cassandra's body.
She sighed deeply and wrinkled her nostrils as she inhaled a large amount of rotted air. Through the dark streets, between the rain drops, she could see the silhouettes reflecting in the lightening strikes of a city that had been turned into a hive.
The group halted just within eyesight of the city's building some distance away, too exhausted to continue, and too wary of the hive to dare to enter.
Cassandra watched the still, dark buildings ahead for a moment. She scanned the buildings, waiting anxiously to see a flicker of blue white light from the alien warrior's weapons, but the only flashing she saw was from the lightning in the clouds above her.
The group was pulling away into a large gas station convenience store. Cassandra turned away from the small cityscape and looked at Lewis.
He stared at her but said nothing as she tried to read his eyes. He looked angry, confused, exhausted, and soaked. Without a word, they joined the rest of the group inside the store. With a roof over her head and no rain pouring down on her, Cassandra soon relaxed just enough to allow for the wave of exhaustion that had been tailing her to finally overtake her.
She was aroused from her deep sleep in the morning by Lewis gently tapping on her shoulder. She felt like she had just fallen asleep, but she slowly opened her eyes.
She eventually rose to her feet and joined the group that was readying to start their journey into the city. With a deep sigh, Cassandra stepped out into the musky air and eyed the city.
The scent of death lingered in the air and she warily eyed the cityscape. A massive plume of black smoke rose up from somewhere inside the city limits and a smile ran across Cassandra's lips.
She could feel the group's excitement increase as they talked amongst themselves while readily heading towards the destructed city. It was clear to the group that the alien visitors had completed their task. As they drew closer to the perimeter of the city, the smell of acid and smoke and the heat from the destructed hive filled the air.
The scents were so thick they were almost tangible as Cassandra walked right through the musky film she could feel in the hazy air. The group fell quiet as they started through the city streets, scanning the buildings around them warily, holding their weapons ready to be used if needed.
There was not as much damage here as they had seen before. There was no massive blast site, no leveled buildings or piles of rubble burning against the cloudy morning sky.
As Cassandra and the group walked through the streets, they came across many streets impassibly blocked by too many shredded carcasses of the bug drones to count. The heavy stench of the acid blood from the monstrous creatures lingered in the air and burned Cassandra's throat as she walked and silently scanned the buildings around her.
There was only stillness in the air. It was obvious that they had slept through the night's battle, out of sheer exhaustion and had missed any activity.
By the time the morning had rolled around and the group made their way into the city, there was nothing alive left. The alien hunters had stormed through the bug hive and eradicated the infernal creatures from existence in one night.
Determined more than ever and even more eager to continue following after the aliens, the group soon departed the city. They had taken some time to examine the destruction more fully, but they did not pass into certain areas that were far too damaged from the acidic carcasses.
They talked wildly amongst themselves as they left the city, trying their best to determine where the aliens might have headed last. They tracked out of the city on the eastern side and walked along a cluttered roadway, passing abandoned, rusted vehicles.
Cassandra looked across the road and across a large lake on the northern side. Its water was smooth and peaceful, dark and still, like the lake had been topped with a massive piece of tinted glass.
The trees around the water were budding small blossoms amongst their newly greened leaves and the area seemed at ease with the world around it and oblivious to the threats that walked the land. All along the other side of the road trees and shrubbery were growing and signs of new life were springing up everywhere, defiantly rising out of the ground, reaching for a sun.
The budding greenery contrasted so very much with the world around it, but Cassandra soon found herself over swept by its optimistic power.
Her thoughts traced back to the aliens she had hoped to track down and she was silently hoping for an end to the war. She thought back to when life was different for her and the rest of the world. She remembered a time when a quick end to an unusual parasitic infestation was all that people hoped for.
She felt stupid for the terrible underestimation that she and all of humanity had given the terrible creatures. Now, though, there was more than hope in the air, there was a true, real chance for victory, not just survival.
Cassandra could feel it in the air, the rest of the group could sense it and even the trees and little growing stalks of flowers seemed to know that victory was at hand, and a return to life as it used to be might be on the horizon.
They walked for miles and soon found themselves hot on the trail of the alien pack. They walked into another city and almost immediately heard howls and shrieks not from the bugs that they were so familiar with hearing.
The bellowing noises were from the alien hunters, and they were close. Cassandra and Lewis quickly led the group towards the sounds of the battle. They jogged down several blocks and darted around a corner, anticipation rising in the air as quickly as their hearts were beating.
Cassandra instantly raised her weapon and readied to fire as she turned the corner. Most of the pack of alien warriors were sprawled out in different spots along the street, snarling and screaming as they spun their bladed weapons into the air and crashed them down onto the monstrous creatures that attacked them.
Upset by the arrival of the group of humans, the battle was thrown into full blast as a new swarm of bugs barreled on to the scene from down an adjacent street.
Within seconds of their arrival, the group was opening fire on a swarm that just kept coming. Tearing towards them in an angry line as wide as the street, the black creatures hissed and squealed as they collided with the gunfire line in front of them.
Cassandra turned towards the battle amongst the aliens and noticed a new swarm heading them off in the other direction. The warriors saw the creatures too, and several of them instantly jumped around.
The two in the front of the line that were carrying hand held versions of the blue and white fire caster opened fire repeatedly. The sound of the weapon echoed through the streets along with the dying shrieks of the bugs and the wild howls of the masked warriors.
Looking back to the street just in front of her, Cassandra saw the swarm continue to grow. The creatures clattered to the ground amidst the weapon fire, but their numbers yet again assured them that they would get through the firing line.
As the enraged beasts scaled over their fallen kin, the group was forced to pull back to put some distance between the nightmarish creatures and their acid blood spray.
One of the alien warriors turned from the group fighting in the street and quickly headed towards the group of humans pushing back into their ground.
The alien howled loudly from under his mask and raised his handheld rifle weapon and opened fire.
The first blue streak of burning hot flame streaked past Cassandra's face so closely she could feel the heat from the blast. The oval shaped fire bolt slammed into a charging bug close to the group.
The creature exploded in an instant and those around it jumped back for safety from the acid spray. Over and over the alien warrior fired its weapon at the charging onslaught of drone bugs.
The group maintained fire as best they could and soon the end of the swarm was in sight. Cassandra turned back towards the remainder of the alien group.
She saw one at the other end of the street dripping with his own blood, but he still stood and sliced through the creatures that swarmed at him.
The commander of the group was just beyond the injured warrior, wielding his own double bladed weapon, slicing through the raging flood around him, and adding to the growing pile of carcasses encircling him at his feet.
She turned her head back to her group and took a deep breath. The last of the bugs was falling to the ground and the human group was soon lowering their weapons, looking about at one another and the alien amongst them in shock.
The alien did not seem to care in the least that he was in the middle of a human group. He was simply so caught up in the fighting that he immediately turned, scanned for his next target and moved out of the group, firing at any drones that had made it beyond the line of warriors at the far end of the street.
As he moved in on his next intended victim, Cassandra and the rest of the group started forward silently, providing backup for the aliens.
They watched in wonder as the group of oversized alien fighters cut through the remaining creatures with ease.
Soon, the silent street was filled with glistening tattered bodies, thirty two awe struck humans, and twelve unconcerned aliens.
For an odd but brief moment no one moved, each simply stared at the other species' troops until the alien commander called out a series of raspy noises from the far end of the street and his group turned and stalked away.
The aliens did not cloak their bodies this time, and as the group of humans easily followed in their wake, Cassandra wondered if that was as close as it gets to an invitation to join the aliens.
Each group kept their distance from one another. The aliens led the way and kept a two to three block lead on the humans that followed but they did not increase their pace to such a point that the humans would lose sight of them, nor did they cloak their bodies to disappear completely.
They simply walked the streets at a steady rhythm, scanning the buildings as they went. Cassandra eyed the bleeding alien as he strode along with his group. His thigh was dripping blood with every step and every so often she spied him clutching the torn skin on his abdomen with one hand as he walked.
The gray clouds in the sky never lifted and as the groups walked and dusk began to approach, a light rain once more drizzled down on the marching troops.
Just before the end of the city, the group of alien warriors stopped. Down the street, three blocks behind the warriors, Lewis pulled his group to halt and they watched the aliens with uncertainty and anticipation.
The aliens veered off the street and walked between two buildings, disappearing from sight. Exchanging glances at one another, Lewis led the group silently forward, trying not to lose sight of the aliens they tracked, and nervous that another battle was at hand.
They jogged down the blocks and slowed as they approached the building's corner where the fighters had taken off behind. Cassandra swallowed and listened intently, but heard nothing.
She raised her weapon and double checked that she had a fresh clip in its shaft before stepping forward just behind Lewis. They rounded the turn and scanned the area. As the group filed around the corner, each lowered their weapons and looked about. The warriors were not far ahead, stopped.
Cassandra descended several wide cement stairs and walked into a large, round area that rested between four buildings.
Three hotels and a massive convention hall were connected together by a huge concrete circular path, centered with a large decorative fountain. The warriors were gathered in the center of the circle, sitting, resting, tending to their wounds. Lewis and Cassandra exchanged looks and the group suddenly felt at ease.
"Well, that's good enough for me." Carlos whispered.
Cassandra smiled and glanced at him.
Not interested in spending the night outside in the rain, the group entered into one of the hotels and made themselves at home for the evening in the lobby of the building after searching room after room for anything useful they could take with them and making certain that there were no bugs hidden anywhere too close by, and most of all, trying to seek out anything that might be edible.
Cassandra and Lewis finished their patrol of a few of the upper floors of the building just as darkness covered the sky. They returned to the lobby and joined the others.
"Couldn't find any food, but we got some dry clothes anyway," Carlos said to them as they walked across the main floor.
There was a large pile of clothing at the edge of a hallway into the main lobby and several people in the group were searching through it for anything that might fit them.
Cassandra took off two layers of shirts and searched the pile until she found something dry that she could wear. Thunder started to lash out in the night sky outside once again and Cassandra walked to the glass lobby doors. She stared across the large area towards the large, once beautiful fountain that crowned the cement courtyard.
Through the flashing bolts of lightning that lit the area, Cassandra could see the warrior fighters gathered together.
Most sat and rested while three stood around them, keeping a watchful eye on the area around the group. The commander was on guard with two others, allowing most of his troops to rest.
Cassandra could see that the injured one no longer had glowing green blood dripping from his wounds. He was seated on the edge of the fountain and seemed to be tending his wounds.
Cassandra glanced up to the cloudy night sky, but through the rain drops, she could not see any hint of the ships that had been hovering against the clouds throughout the day. Seeming to not mind in the least getting wet by the drizzle that continued non-stop, the warriors sat so still, Cassandra was certain a few were sleeping while their companions kept guard.
She too rested and when morning came the group hustled to follow the warriors that had already left the area just as the sun started to back light the clouds in the gray spring sky.
As the group walked on and caught up with the warriors, they followed quietly and determinedly. The warriors seemed not to mind their distant followers, paying them no attention as they walked, scanning the areas around them for signs of the prey they stalked.
The warriors led their followers through bug infested lands that they never would have otherwise ventured in to.
The warrior race and their human shadows spent days stalking the nests of the monstrous bugs, methodically eliminating the creatures one hive at a time.
The two groups tracked through cities and towns, up mountainsides and down into the valleys below. The group of humans followed the aliens, keeping their wary distance. The warriors paid them no mind, and the group was well convinced that the aliens intended them no harm.
It was obvious and clear to all that the sole purpose the creatures had was to exterminate the bugs. Cassandra often wondered why the aliens were there, doing what they were doing, and saving the human race. \
She would watch the humanoid creatures curiously during quiet moments of the days and nights while no one was looking, hoping that she would find the answers somewhere in the deep black eyes of the helmets the creatures wore, and almost never removed.
Casandra tried, any time the groups came to rest, to slip silently away from her human companions and encroach on the alien warriors. She tiptoed closer and closer each and every time; either being ignored or unnoticed, she did not know exactly.
The warriors seemed to have no particular destination in mind, but they did move with a purpose. Cassandra was not sure at all what sense they had that allowed them to seek out hive after hive, but the aliens always seemed to be able to turn in just the correct direction to head to another bug infested area.
During battles, the two species would sometimes stand amongst one another, working as one, but once the battle was done, the two races parted ways and tracked only with each's own group.
Over time it became clear to the humans that the aliens they trailed had far more stamina than they could muster. The aliens would migrate, fight, and travel again, for days at a time until they reached another hive. The human group did their best to keep pace, to not lose sight of the aliens, and to fight amongst them when they needed to.
When the warriors needed rest, all rested, but when the warriors moved on, the humans had to choose to either follow or be left behind. They were marching constantly through bug infested territories they strived to avoid for months.
As one week turned into two, and two became three, it seemed the warriors were growing familiar with the group that tracked them.
It took time, but when the group of weary humans could not walk anymore and stopped to rest, the warriors never went too far.
Cassandra did not know what prompted the aliens to stay fairly close to the humans when they decided it was time to rest, but she was glad for their decision to do so.
There were times that a stray bug or a roaming horde that probably lost its hive and its queen, would charge for the resting group and it was good to have the aliens near enough to be alerted to a problem.
This did not happen often, but it did happen. Although the humans were capable of defending themselves, each one realized that the aliens were better.
They were so much more adapted to killing the drones than the humans who merely wanted to survive. The alien's body armor protected their skin well enough from the burning acid blood of their prey, while the weapons they carried with them were capable of slicing through one or three or more at once.
Though they did get injured and since their arrival, this particular group had lost two of it members, they were far more resilient to injury and drone attacks than the humans were.
The aliens did not watch over the humans directly, nor were they really even close to them most of them. They left the group to their own devices, making it clear they wanted little to do with the natives, but they were still protecting them in a way, Cassandra decided.
The aliens almost completely ignored the humans at all times, and the humans kept their distance and never intervened with the aliens.
The walls were up; the boundaries were clear, but as opportunity allowed, Cassandra continually pushed the limits, and tried the patience of the gray hair leader.