"No," Langly hissed at the screen, "no, no, no!" He reached out and slapped the side of the monitor but the screen stayed the same.
"What's up?" Frohike asked, sliding his chair over to take a look himself.
"The network's gone down."
"What do you mean?" Frohike stared at the screen, "how can it have gone down?"
"I don't know. According to the computer it's working fine but there's no broadcast. The signal's still being generated; it's just not going anywhere."
"It's being blocked," Byers cut in, stepping over to look at the screen himself.
"How can someone be blocking it?" Frohike asked.
"Whoever's doing it must have discovered the signal when we used the phones and traced it back here," Byers said, "that's the only way they could be doing it." The three men fell silent.
"Get Mulder," Frohike said; his voice uncharacteristically quiet. Byers left the room, returning just minutes later with Mulder, Edwin & Mordecai in tow.
"What's happening?" Mulder asked. He had only returned to the house a few hours earlier and was still getting his bearings on exactly what was going on.
"The secure network we devised has gone down, someone's blocking it," Langly told him. Mulder pulled out his cell and saw that the screen showed nothing. There was no connectivity rendering the device totally dead. His only lifeline to Scully had been severed and he felt a fleeting moment of panic. Had she already noticed? Was she on her way home? It was almost a full day until she was due to make it back to the house. He clamped down on his fear.
"So the colonists have figured out what we're up to?" he guessed.
"Well we've assumed that from the reports of stage two triggering across the country but yes, I think it's fair to say they've figured out who's behind the vaccine."
"They're trying to cut us off," Edwin added.
"Only one reason they'd do that," Mordecai said solemnly, "they're preparing to attack us here. They've identified this building as the rallying point for the resistance and they're coming to stop us."
They all looked at one another.
"Mordecai, what do you recommend?" Mulder asked. "We've got almost 100 humans in this building and they're as good as dead if they send newborns against us like they did at El Rico. We need to organise a defence."
"How many vampires have made it back?" Mordecai asked.
"About 200," Edwin answered. Each vampire on a vaccine delivery had been asked to report back to Edwin who was marking the cities off on a map, allowing them a clear visual representation of coverage. It wasn't a perfect system but with their lack of communications it was the best they could do.
"OK," Mordecai sighed, thinking fast, "I want to set up two perimeters; an outer one at 500 feet and an inner one at 100 feet. We'll surround the entire building with two circles of fighters. I want 100 people in that outer ring; if my math is correct that gives us one person every 15 feet. I want another 75 people on the inner perimeter, that's one every 4 feet so that circle should be tight if the outer ring is breached. I want another group on the roof and a dozen more immediately outside. Mulder, you and I will stay inside to liaise with these guys; anyone else shows up we send them out to that first perimeter to boost the numbers out there. In here we arm every human who can hold a gun. I want everyone in the central room away from the windows. Anyone vulnerable, kids at least, to the middle with the others surrounding them as a last line of defense. We know the colonists are vulnerable to bullets but I'd rather it didn't come down to that."
"You think we can hold them off?" Edwin asked.
"Honestly, I have no idea," Mordecai answered. "We don't know anything about this enemy so I don't know how to defend against them, I have to base everything on what I saw at El Rico. We don't know how they will attack this time, how they'll get here or how they might be armed. What we can assume is that the first wave of newborns will have gestated by now. I'm betting that the only reason we haven't been hit already is that the colonists are gathering as many of them as possible to throw at us, they'll likely use them as cannon fodder."
Frohike shuddered remembering his first and so far only encounter with a newborn alien colonist. He felt a moment of phantom pain as he remembered the creature throwing him to the ground and his arm shattering, it had only been a few weeks since Scully had finally removed his cast. An image of Scully appeared in his head, the way she had looked as she had torn the colonist apart after it had attacked Mulder and left him fatally wounded. She had seemed feral, completely insane with rage and the shriek that had come from her when she had launched at the creature still played in his nightmares. The colonist hadn't had a clue what it had unleashed by attacking Mulder. The terrifying savage streak Frohike had witnessed in Scully had increased when she had tasted Mulder's blood, to the point where Edwin had been forced to physically throw her across the room. Frohike had been horrified at the violence of the action. He knew full well by then that she was inhumanly strong and practically indestructible, but even now he still thought of her as the deceptively fragile woman he had come to know. Watching a relative stranger hurl her across a room and into a wall had been more than he could watch and seeing the raw vitriol on her face at that moment had almost undone him completely.
"Come on then," Mulder said, snapping his fingers, "let's get to it." He walked over to a store cupboard and pulled out three rifles, handing one to each of the Gunmen.
"Here goes nothing," Byers sighed as he took his weapon. Frohike looked around at his friends. He had no idea what the next few days would bring but he had a feeling somewhere deep in his gut that made him uncomfortable. He found himself clutching his weapon tighter than necessary and for the first time since childhood, he felt an urge to pray.
Author's Notes:
Well guys, this is it. A couple nights ago I finished off the final chapters for this baby and sent them to my awesome beta. They've just come back and it's all finished here! I'll be uploading every couple of days until the end now. I'm gonna miss this fic so much but I've also been holding off (often unsuccessfully depending on just how inspired I was) on several others and I still have my NaNoWriMo fics to edit and publish from last November! Thanks again to everyone who's following/favourited this or me, those notification emails really make my day! One last thing, I haven't been noting where the chapter titles have come from lately. Recent ones have included easyworld, The Who, Bon Jovi, David Ford, Brandon Flowers and Joy Division. They're all amazing and I recommend you go and take a listen.
