CHAPTER 13

Ham Tyler found himself in the eye of a hurricane.

Like a statue he was unmoving, taking everything in while betraying nothing of his thoughts or feelings, even as dozens of resistance fighters were moving very quickly in random directions all around him. The urgency of the group's need to evacuate as quickly as possible permeated everything and everyone in the rebel headquarters. Save for his eyes, he seemed frozen in place.

"Gooder!" he bellowed, finally finding one of two people he was looking for.

Mike Donovan pushed his way through the rush of people to where Tyler was. "This is all we've got," he said as he knelt and set down a box containing a few sticks of dynamite and a coil of ignition fuse. "We're running low."

Tyler appraised the contents of the box. "No worries; Chris will be back in a couple of minutes with enough party favors that'll bring the house down." He looked at Donovan. "So, what do you say?"

"I've talked to my people. Wish we had more time to talk about things, think about our options, but it seems to us that our best move is to hook up with your network. At least for now."

"Smart choice."

"IF you do something for us."

"And what's that?"

"Julie Parrish, our leader… we don't know what happened to her. She… she got separated from us last night when we were making our escape from the hospital. We're… we're afraid the Visitors got her."

"Or she's dead."

Donovan sighed. "I hate to admit it, but that's also possible."

"Honestly, I'm not sure what's worse."

Tyler saw a twinge of pain in his Donovan's eyes.

"I know this much," Donovan said. "They – we – want Julie back. We NEED her back."

"OK, here's the deal: We'll use the network's resources, find out what happened to her. If she was taken alive we'll go from there."

"Not good enough," Donovan said. "If the Visitors have her, we won't settle for anything less than getting her back."

"I don't know how smart that is, but fine," Tyler said, nodding, then changed the subject. "How much more time do you need to get out of here?"

"We're not as ready as we'd like, but most of the essentials are ready to go," Donovan said. "We've been packing up since around 5 this morning."

"Do you have a new hidey hole picked out?"

"I scouted out a place."

"OK, Chris and I are going to cover your escape. You lead your people to the end of the sewer tunnel; it will spit you out near the 6th Street bridge in Boyle Heights. We'll meet you there after taking care of the snake patrol here. We'll contact the network to meet us with vehicles to help move everything to this new HQ you've picked out."

"Sounds good."

As both men rose from their crouch, Tyler pressed the earpiece in his right ear and listened to the transmission. His forehead furrowed.

"That was Chris," he said to Donovan. "He said the snake patrol is about one minute out, and there's half of the LAPD all rushing to this location. You and your people sure pissed those fuckers off last night."

Tyler saw the denial etched on Donovan's face. "How did they find us so quick?"

"Never mind that," Tyler said. "Get your ass in gear and lead your people out of here. We'll talk more in a bit."

Donovan slapped Tyler's back, then ran towards the entrance into the sewer tunnel network. At just that moment Chris Farber hustled his bulk into the room, carrying a couple of military green duffel bags. Fortunately most of the rebel fighters had already moved on to another part of the building. Otherwise, Farber would have knocked them over like pins in the path of a bowling ball.

"Are they on their way out?" Farber asked.

Tyler nodded as he listened to Donovan instructing the rebels. "Yeah. Gooder's got a handle on his end." He pointed at the stash of explosives and supplies Donovan left him. "We got enough?"

Farber flashed him a grin of delight. "Hell yeah, we do."

"How quickly can you rig this joint?"

"I've stuck C-4 and wired it all up in all the right places on my way in here."

"Good man."

"I just need to use a bit more over there," Chris said, pointing a column twenty-some feet away, "here," indicating the wall behind them, "and a couple more positions near our exfil point. I'll use these boom sticks here and save our C-4, just in case."

"OK, "said Tyler. Chris handed him a MAC-10, and Tyler cocked it. "Get busy. I'll cover you. You got a Teflon load in this?"

"You bet."

Tyler assented with a grunt, then launched himself into a half-sprint towards the entrance to the rebel hideout. As he approached he could hear the boot falls of the alien soldiers as they descended down into the bowels of the building.

He took a position behind a giant stainless steel floor-mounted food steamer in the kitchen area, focusing his senses for clues as to when to engage the Visitor soldiers. From the tempo and rhythm of their boots Tyler could tell that the Shock Troopers were either not expecting anybody to still be in the building, or that they were supremely confident that their armor vests would prove as effective against firearms as they always were.

When he thought there were maybe four or five soldiers in the area, Tyler broke cover, spraying the room with Teflon-coated armor-piercing projectiles. The echoes of the MAC-10's rapid-fire report competed with the anguished cries of the Shock Troopers whose bodies erupted with gouts of green blood.

Surprise, you bastards.

Tyler crouched again as three more Shock Troopers entered the room. The soldiers made an instant tactical adjustment, taking cover behind counters and spaces along the walls that were not in Tyler's line of fire. He took that opportunity to move to his next position, taking cover behind a large walk-in freezer.

As soon as he heard the Visitor soldiers again move towards him, he broke cover and fired a fusillade of bullets at them, then retreated back into cover. Tyler smiled to himself, knowing that the Visitors were confused as to why his submachine gun was able to inflict such serious damage on them.

He peeked around the freezer, crouched low to the ground, assessing whether or not it was safe to scurry to his next covered position deeper in the building. Seeing no movement, he sprinted from behind the freezer and moved to the next room, taking a place behind a wall on the far side.

The next group of alien soldiers – six of them this time – hurried after Tyler, firing a few bursts of blue laser fire at him, but missing due to his erratic course across the room. As soon as Tyler reached safety behind the wall, he crouched slightly, then broke cover and fired back.

Three more Shock Troopers fell, but the MAC-10 stopped spitting out its deadly projectiles. The Visitors instantly recognized their chance to return fire, and Tyler just barely avoided getting cooked by a barrage of laser fire, spinning back behind the wall for cover.

Fuck. Bad time to go empty.

He dropped the exhausted magazine onto the floor, where its clatter echoed inside the confined space.

That's right, you scaly bastards. I'm out.

Except I'm not.

Tyler smiled as he heard more soldiers enter the room. They now were proceeding with much more caution, moving more slowly and with much more care than their dead compatriots did. He cocked the MAC-10 and fired a few short bursts, hitting even more of his Visitor pursuers.

He ran to his next position, down the hall and into a room to his right. Farber was there, pushing three dynamite sticks into a wad of plastic explosives he had stuck on the wall like a humongous piece of chewing gum.

"Having fun?" Farber asked.

Tyler just snorted, amused, as he peeked around the doorway. Through the shadows he saw the slow movements of more Visitors on his trail. He fired at them and watched all of them fall. But behind them, more took their place, and Tyler knew there were a few more behind them just out of sight. He emptied his magazine with a long burst into the hallway.

He scurried back to Farber, who was now wiring up the explosives.

"I need another mag."

Farber slapped a new magazine into Tyler's waiting hand, and Tyler rushed back towards the hallway. He took a peek, then fired, hitting four more soldiers.

Tyler took another peek, counted eight more targets move into the hall.

"It's getting real busy out there," he said to Farber.

"I'm almost finished."

Tyler nodded, knowing Farber wouldn't have seen the gesture, then fired into the hallway again, laying down some suppressing fire.

Thirty seconds later he heard Farber call to him. Tyler stopped firing and approached his large companion.

"I'll meet you at the staging point," said Tyler.

"You got it." Farber handed Tyler a triggering device with fuse wire dangling down onto the floor, then slapped him on the shoulder. "Good luck, brother. I'm gone."

Tyler watched his companion scurry out of the room through a doorway into the adjacent room, then followed him and took a position behind a wall. He stayed crouched out of sight, knowing the Shock Troopers would start advancing towards him again, particularly since he hadn't returned fire in the last minute and a half.

Sure enough, a cautious soldier entered the room, with another one just behind.

Tyler tightened his grip on the twist-action trigger as he watched them from his protected position. He knew that he could spring the explosive trap Farber had prepared at any moment, but he held back.

Just a little closer, you scaly fucking bastard.

Just a little more...

As the lead soldier crept right next to where the wad of explosives, Tyler twisted the handle.

Time to bring the house down.

A series of explosions rocked the former rebel headquarters. Farber had planted charges strategically on load-bearing walls and columns throughout the building, causing most of the roof to cave in, thereby crushing any people unfortunate enough to be inside the structure.

It took almost two minutes for the ground to stop shaking, not just from the explosions, but from the myriad impacts of pieces of the roof crashing down. When everything seemed settled enough, Tyler stood up, waving a hand in front of his face so that he wouldn't choke on the clouds of dust and debris wafting around.

He picked his way through the rubble to where he knew the alien soldier had been. He kneeled down when he saw red on the ground. It wasn't Visitor blood he was looking at, of course. Rather, it was the tattered remnants of the alien's uniform. In amongst the debris were various body parts – an arm here, a piece of a leg there – smeared with green alien blood. Tyler's gaze swept across the floor, finding smashed pieces of black Shock Trooper helmet here and there, with pulverized pieces of alien skull stuck to the material.

As he stood up to meet up with Farber, he found a few portions of a torso. The red uniform was smeared dark with blood, but there was a section where the alien's synth-skin had torn away, revealing the green-black scales beneath.

"Now that's a waste of good luggage," he quipped.