Chapter 14: Reactions

Casey chewed the inside of her lip and rocked Etta as she listened to Weaver deliver his speech to the 2nd Mass from atop the back of a truck. The Captain was informing everyone of what the latest plan was. Ben's mission across the river resulted in the discovery of a communications tower. Weaver's plan was to attack the tower and thus screw up the Beamers command controls long enough for the 2nd Mass to cross the hastily repaired bridge. Then, they would blow the bridge to pieces to try and ensure the aliens would at least be delayed if they attempted to follow their path.

"So, pack up," Weaver finished addressing the 2nd Mass. "We leave tonight, no delays." With that, the Captain hopped down off the back of the truck and disappeared into his tent.

The 2nd Mass dispersed, but Casey lagged behind. This group were good at moving, and they were good at moving fast. It was probably due to the fact none of them really unpacked or settled in to any one place. Casey sure didn't. They all lived under the assumption that they could be packing up to leave at a moment's notice, which is exactly what they were doing.

On her way back to her tent to triple check her packed bags, Casey spotted Matt sitting outside of the medbus. "Hey, Matt," Casey called to him as she approached. "Did you hear? Captain Weaver says we're heading out real soon."

"Yeah, I'm ready to go," Matt said monotonously and kicked his backpack which was sitting at his feet. "I wish we were over there already."

Casey frowned down at him. "Then why do you look like someone just ran over your dog?"

Matt kicked a rock across the dirt and sighed. "Hal told me to ride in the bus with Dad."

"And you don't want to?"

Matt didn't answer, he just looked at his feet for a few moments before he spoke again. "Will you come with me?"

Given that Matt witnessed Tom collapsing and knew that an alien bug-worm had been pulled from his dad's eye, Casey didn't blame him for not wanting to be alone in a bus with his father. Tom had calmed and recovered from his emergency eyeworm removal, but that little critter had done the weirdest thing. Right in front of Casey, Anne and Lourdes' eyes, it had snapped shut and became a little metal ball that rolled around the specimen jar like a marble. Weaver had Jamil take a look at it, worried it was a tracking device or had somehow affected Tom's mind. In the end, Tom asked to be tied up inside the bus to make sure he wouldn't hurt anyone, least of all his children.

"Yeah, sure," Casey agreed. "I'll get my bags and meet you in there, okay?"

Matt gave her the briefest of nods, picked up his backpack and slowly made his way into the bus. Poor boy looked so glum, Casey was used to seeing him as a generally happy kid. Granted, his current situation left little to be happy about.

Casey headed for her tent to collect her things. Her path by the water's edge took her past the Berserkers who were packing their things as well as prepping their weapons. Weaver had said Pope's gang plus Anthony were tasked with covering the 2nd Mass from Mechs and skitters while they got across the bridge, and they were all thrilled about it. It was their favourite sort of task, shooting guns and killing aliens.

"Wow," Casey said as she noticed all the Berserkers stuff seemed to already be packed. The night before, their crap had been all over the place. "When dead skitters are on offer, you guys get organized."

"Best feeling in the world," Lee smiled as she reloaded her rifle. "Is knowing I got a gun full of bullets and an army of skitters waiting to taste 'em."

"Hey," Pope climbed out of the truck and walked towards Casey. "We'll all be on bikes, you wanna drive the truck?" He held out the keys to her. "One and only chance. You can stick the kid in the glove box." He nodded at Etta, then looked up and gave Casey a coy little smile. "Or do you want to wait until I'm done fighting the big bad aliens and then cuddle up on my bike again?"

"No and Hell no," Casey said flatly. "I told Matt I'd ride in the med-bus with him. So," She smiled sweetly. "You'll just have to cuddle up on that bike all by yourself."

Pope gave her a look. "Mini-Mason and the Professor? You're gonna ride shotgun with an alien homing device?"

"If it was a homing device, it was a crap one," Casey pointed out. "If the Beamers had picked up our position, skitters and Mechs would have swarmed us by now. What are they waiting for?"

"Well, that's the big ol' question, isn't it?"

Casey gave him a dismissive roll of her eyes. "You really are getting paranoid, you know that?"

"Hey kid," Pope leant over slightly and addressed a bright-eyed Etta who was sucking her fist. "Think you could tell your mother to smarten up a little? She knows as well as you do that Father Mason is not playing with a full deck."

Casey felt her smile vanish and her body tense up. "Don't call me that."

In a split second, the air had changed. Pope stood straight, eyes set on Casey, staying silent. Behind him, Tector stopped fiddling with the truck engine and Lee looked up from packing her ammo. Even Maggie and Hal stopped securing supplies onto the back of the pickup.

"I'm not her mother." Casey almost didn't recognized the tone in her voice, it was stern in a way she wasn't used to. Instantly, she wanted to be anywhere else but in front of Pope. Casey shifted Etta over her shoulder, avoided looking at any of the Berserkers and walked towards her tent ignoring all the eyes that followed her.

Riding on the bus with Tom and Matt wasn't without its awkwardness, but it was preferable to dealing with the awkwardness Casey had caused with her reaction to being labelled Etta's mother. In the few hours that it took the 2nd Mass to get packed up and start leaving, Casey had thought of little else.

It was a logical thing for Pope, or anyone, to say. Casey was caring for Etta, Etta's mother wasn't around, therefore Casey had assumed the primary parental role. Except that wasn't what had happened. At least, not in Casey's assessment. Sarah had been killed by a Mech. And Casey just happened to be the one beside her to pick up Etta before the Mechs got the both of them. In the 2nd Mass everyone had a job to do, and Etta was Casey's. But that didn't make Casey a mother.

The lurching of the bus pulled Casey out of her thoughts. Anne was behind the wheel, a cautious and steady driver since she still had patients on board, but she had to keep stopping and starting on their way to the bridge so they wouldn't make too much noise. Etta didn't seem to mind the motion at all; she had fallen to sleep in her basket soon after Casey had sat her on the back seat. Matt was with her now, using the edge of the basket as a ledge to write in his journal. Lourdes was on her feet focused on her patients, all four of whom were strapped to their gurneys on the bus for the trip. Tom was tied to one of the metal standing poles, and Casey had moved to the seat adjacent to him to get away from the eyeworm.

An added, unsettling side-effect of riding in the med-bus was that Casey had to travel with the creepy thing. The little critter was still in the specimen jar Lourdes had dropped it into after Anne pulled it from Tom's eye, but that didn't make Casey any happier to be within reaching distance of it. Casey didn't know why they were keeping it. If it was a tracking device, surely it didn't matter whether it was in Tom's eye or in the jar next to him? It was still tracking.

"So... you think you're dangerous?" Casey asked Tom, more so to break the silence than anything else. It was awkward sitting in a bus with so many people and no one saying anything - especially when one of them had his hands tied in plastic bindings.

"I think it's better to be safe than sorry," Tom told her tiredly. He looked like hell. His hair and beard seemed to be have morphed into one, shaggy entity. His skin was white and clung tight to his cheek bones. His eyes were sunken in and really round. He looked like he'd been awake for a week.

"But if you do freak out," Casey said slowly. "Are those plastic wraps really going to hold you back?"

Tom raised his eyebrows at her. "Freak out?"

"Like in werewolf movies," Casey explained. "The guy - it's always a guy - tries to contain himself during the full moon. Chains himself to a radiator, gets someone to lock him in a cage or something. But it doesn't matter, he always breaks out and goes on a rampage."

Tom gave her a weak smile. "That's not going to happen."

Casey paused, uneasiness settling in her belly. "But better to be safe, right?"

Tom held her gaze and nodded once. "Right."

The bus came to such a sudden stop that Casey almost slipped off her seat. "Jesus!" She swore as she clasped the guardrail.

"Ssh!" Tom hushed Casey.

Casey stilled herself and listened. The approaching roar of duel engines grumbled overhead. Beamers. "They found us," Casey breathed. Either the tower hadn't been hit, or it had and knocking it down had had no effect on the ships. "Lourdes?!"

"Sit tight!" Lourdes yelled over her shoulder as she dashed off the bus. "I'll be back in-"

An explosion of bullets cut Lourdes off. The spark of gunfire flashed outside the bus windows as the scouts began firing above them. Matt's hands flew up to cover his ears and Etta started to scream. Casey jumped from her seat and ran to the back of the bus. "Ssh, Etta, it's okay," Casey scooped her up. "Matt, get down," She grabbed the boy by the hood of his sweatshirt and pulled him down behind the seat with her and Etta. The bus shuddered and vibrated with the sound of gunfire blasting around them, but after only a few more seconds, the gunshots ceased.

With Etta under her arm, Casey slowly got to her feet. Matt was clinging to her hand and didn't let go of her even as he sat back in his seat.

"Matt?" Tom called out. "You okay?"

Matt nodded, staying put with Casey.

"They got the tower," Lourdes grinned as she jogged back onto the bus. "The beamers are flying home."

Casey clutched Matt's hand. "They just left us?"

Lourdes shrugged. "Jamil thinks they must be wired to fly back to wherever they take off from if the signal goes out."

"Okay, everyone!" Weaver's voice roared from outside. "Let's move!"

"So, we got the tower?" Tom asked Lourdes as the bus pulled forwards.

"Looks like it," Lourdes started to check on her patients as Anne steered them on their way.

Casey peered out the window and saw they were completely on the bridge now, inching closer to the newly rebuilt mid-section. Anne kept them steady, taking her time. Another roar shuddered through the air, this one Casey knew quite well. Motorbikes.

"Better step it up, Cap!" Pope's voice cut through the motors. "We got beaucoup Skitters and Mechs right behind us!"

Casey's heartbeat quickened. In the distance she heard the distinct thunking of Mech footsteps and they were definitely getting closer. The bus lurched forwards again as the front two wheels made it over the 2nd Mass's temporary scaffolding. But as the back two tyres rolled across, the bridge began to give and the back wheel sunk sharply down on the left hand side.

"Dammit!" Casey swore as she slipped back, only just managing to keep her grip on Etta.

"It's stuck!" Anne yelped from behind the wheel. She turned to Lourdes. "Get off, all of you!"

"NON-ESSENTIAL PERSONNEL, GO!" Weaver bellowed from outside. "GET OVER THE BRIDGE ON FOOT! NOW! MOVE! GO! GO! GO!"

"Matt, come on," Casey adjusted Etta in her arms and tugged Matt down the bus aisle. Out of the windows, she saw members of the 2nd Mass sprinting past, abandoning the cars and bags and just bolting for the other side of the river.

"Wait," Tom stopped Matt and Casey as they past him. "Matt, you got your pocket knife on you? I need you to untie me."

Matt looked worriedly at his father. "But you said you might-"

"Forget what I said; just do it. Please." Tom held out bound hands. "I've gotta go fight them."

Matt looked up at Casey, troubled, but then used his free hand to remove his knife out of his pocket. He snapped it out of its sheath and began to cut his father free.

"Lourdes!" Weaver yelled as he stomped up the bus stairs. "Get off this bus and go across on foot, now!" He gestured for Lourdes to get off the bus and caught eyes with Casey. "Casey, you get across the bridge with that baby, now!"

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

The Mechs were close enough that their footsteps shook the ground. Casey helped Matt finish cutting through Tom's binds and then ushered the boy off the bus where Lourdes was waiting for them. Weaver had a handful of his guys trying to push the bus out of the crevice it was stuck in, but everyone else appeared to already be over the other side of the river. The bus and some scouts were the last to cross.

"We gotta go," Casey nudged Lourdes along ahead of her. The explosives were all set up along the railing beside them. Wires ran all the way to the other side of the river where Jamil was waiting with the detonator.

Tom shot off the bus behind Casey ignoring Anne screaming his name. "Dad?" Matt called as he saw his father run off.

"Get across the bridge, wait for Hal, Grace and Ben!" He yelled to his youngest son before running headfirst into the smoke of the battle.

"Dad!" Matt let go of Casey's hand and sprinted after his father.

"Matt! Matt, get back here!" Casey quickly offloaded Etta to Lourdes and took off after him. "Matt!"

Blinded by the smoke, Casey slowed to a jog to wade through the haze. She could hear the gigantic booming of the machine gun on the pedestal and, in a brief moment of clarity from the smoke, she saw Tom standing on the mount, firing the trigger. Bullets hammered into the Mechs and skitters, slowing them but not stopping them.

A rapid burst of bullets caught Casey off guard with how close she was to Tom, but then she realized it was Matt, just ahead of her, who firing at the skitter with a rifle. Casey hadn't seen him pick it up and had no clue he knew how to shoot it, but he did. He'd nailed it. The alien crumpled in a mess right in front of Tom, who turned his head to smile broadly at his son. "Get him off the bridge!" Tom screamed at Casey before turning back to the huge gun and unloading on the Mech.

"Come on," Casey took the rifle from Matt, clasped his hand in hers and hurried back towards the bus. Weaving carefully over the scaffolding, Casey lead Matt to the other side of the river towards the gathered 2nd Mass who had all managed to cross safely. Also there were the team who had gone to blow up the tower. Ben, Hal, Grace, Maggie and Dai all stood protectively in front of the 2nd Mass clutching their weapons.

With a screech of rubber, the bus jolted forwards a little and rolled out of the hole in the bridge. The group pushing it kept doing so until Anne took control and managed to weave the vehicle safely across. Lourdes gave Etta back to Casey and ran towards the bus to help Anne.

"Wait, my Dad's back there!" Matt cried to Weaver. "And the skitters and Mechs are still coming!"

"What?" Weaver stared out over the bridge, eyes bright. "Tom, get the hell out of there!" He yelled across the way . "We're gonna blow the bridge!"

The machine gun was still firing. Tom wasn't moving.

"Dad, run!" Hal yelled. "Get over here!"

"You hold it," Weaver warned Jamil with a stern hand. "You hold off."

"Dad, come on!"

The gunshots stopped, and a moment later, through the smoke, came Tom's silhouette sprinting towards them. "Blow the bridge!" Tom screamed as he ran. "Blow the bridge! Do it now!"

"Oh, my God," Casey breathed, clutching Etta tighter. Tom was legging it towards them, but at least half a dozen skitters were already on the bridge after him. Jamil was holding the detonator firmly in his hands, Pope was right over his shoulder.

"Dad!"

"Blow the bridge!"

"No!"

In one swift move, Pope snatched the detonator from Jamil and squeezed down on the button. For a brief moment everything was quiet, then the world ripped apart as the bridge exploded in a monstrous fireball.