CHAPTER NINETEEN
Without taking a moment to consider, the group began to move forward down the hill, towards the battle. As they crept closer, the sounds of the battle filled their ears.
They could hear the high pitched shrieks of the angry bugs as the creatures charged forth at their new foes. Over the sounds of their terrible voices, the group could hear deep loud howls that must have been coming from the alien fighters.
As Cassandra drew near and the images became clearer, she slowed her pace for a moment just to watch the massive clash at hand. Like ancient gladiators, the alien fighters forged through the flooding numbers of their enemies.
Some of the aliens, she noticed, wielded long shafted spears as their weapons, while others carried what looked like massive hand guns that fired bright blue pulses. Others yet fired the blue burst of light from the shoulder mounted weapons. An odd sound filled the air with each trigger pull.
The alien fighters whipped around like they were dancing a well choreographed routine as they sliced through their enemies with apparent ease, cutting and severing the deadly beasts with spears, blades, and some even fighting bare handed.
The bugs were clearly angered by the new enemies and struck at them with so much ferocity it almost felt as though an ancient hatred was displaying itself there on an Earthly battlefield.
Cassandra scanned from fighter to fighter, watching each one for a moment as they pushed into the attacking numbers of bugs.
It seemed as though the aliens could not have come better prepared for the attack. They knew exactly how to handle the creatures, that much was obvious Cassandra thought.
The warriors were perfectly able to leap and roll and jump and sprint through their enemy lines and for the most part, avoid getting injured at all.
She watched as one fighter took down two drones with each end of his spear, squat down and slice through another drone with a blade she did not even see him holding, spring up and avoid the acid wash from the creature, and impale yet two more with the spear in only a matter of seconds.
Each fighter, it seemed, was able to move and kill with as much efficiency. Cassandra quickly counted thirteen of the alien warriors, each armored a little different and wielding various weapons. But each of the aliens was concentrating on their enemy and slicing through them quickly and ferociously.
Some of the warriors were clad in body armor that was so minimal in its covering Cassandra could hardly see how it could be useful or protective.
She saw at least five of the warriors dressed in armor that exposed their chests and abdomens, thighs and upper arms, but covered their backs and lower legs along with their heads. She glanced to several more that were in armor that so completely covered their bodies they looked like some kind of medieval gothic alien knight.
Each of the warrior fighters, towering taller than any human Cassandra knew, looked ferocious, eerie, and deadly.
While each one of them fought with incredible prowess and was no doubt a well accomplished fighter, ready for the battle at hand, they all seemed to be following direction and cues from one commander, who was near the middle of the formation, at the very front.
He was easily recognizable from the others not only from his position, but also because he physically looked different than the rest.
His skin was paler in color, gray. He was obviously older than the others, Cassandra presumed immediately as she watched him stalk and slice his prey with a sort of cool headed ease.
Every one of the fighters wore a helmet, though the detailing on the helmets varied from individual to individual, the helmets were sleek and smooth. The deep black eye pieces gave the helmets an oddly hollow look and made their wearers seem that much more surreal and alien.
The individuals all had a different look to them and as Cassandra drew nearer yet, she could see the beads in their ropy hair catching the reflection of the fire blasts while their ropy hair strands swung about as the creatures danced and whirled around, killing their foes.
"Get back, Cassy!" Lewis warned as Cassandra pushed forth closer and closer to the battle to watch the scene unfold more clearly.
The bugs noticed the presence of the humans, though they did not seem as disturbed by them as they were by the alien fighters.
Only a few of the bug drones broke off their attack of the aliens and charged up the hill at the humans. As they opened fire, Cassandra glanced from alien to bug and back again.
She could not tell if the aliens had even noticed the presence of the humans, or even cared in the slightest that they had joined the raging battle.
The flood ensued for what seemed like an eternity. Cassandra did not even know where all of the bugs were coming from.
With their hive destroyed and so many already dead, she thought for sure there would an end to the swarm but she could not see it. She would fire her rifle dry and back behind Lewis and Carlos for cover as she reloaded and rejoined the fight.
Just as the last of the drones that had bothered to turn their attention to the group of humans had been killed, Cassandra glanced off down the street and saw that the aliens were still fighting a massive wave of the serpentine black creatures.
She turned her rifle to the swarm, ready to help the alien warriors in their cause, but before she could even pull the trigger, another large group of creatures flooded like angry bees from around a building just down the block.
Their numbers were so numerous she could not even see through their ranks. The street turned black with the approaching creatures as the humans spun about and opened fire, coming dangerously close to depleting their ammunition supplies.
Until now, they had always been ammunition wary. Conserving their weapons' ammo was at the top of their priority list for survival, it came even before finding food and water.
Now, charged up by the destruction of one hive and hundreds of drones, and the presence of the alien fighters, the humans seemed to lose their grasp of their plan for survival. They were no longer interested in fleeing for their lives. They stood their ground and fired their guns dry.
When a few of the people in their group had completely run out of all ammunition, they switched to hand held weapons. Wielding machetes or holding their empty weapons like bats, four of the group charged blindly forward and met with brutal death amongst the sea of drones, despite the pleading of the rest of the group for them to stop.
Tragically outnumbered, the group fell back as Lewis howled out over the remaining weapon fire. He seemed to be echoed by the alien warriors just a block away, only those fighters charged forward as the group of humans faded back.
Three of the aliens broke into a run and charged towards the new attacking swarm, leaving their companions to continue the war against the other flood.
Ignoring the humans completely, the three alien warriors pulled to a stop at the edge of the block. One of them, or maybe all three, Cassandra found it hard to distinguish under their emotionless masks and over the sounds of the continued gunfire, howled out a throaty growl and caught the attention of the attacking drones.
A few of the shiny black animals broke off from their formation and charged full speed straight at the three warriors. Instead of splaying off to the sides, or even standing their ground and readying their weapons, the three aliens dropped to one knee and held their spears at their sides.
Cassandra found herself trying to fall back away from the drone horde long enough to watch and see what these three warriors were up to.
They seemed completely uninterested in the presence of the humans and equally unconcerned about the charging drones. Suddenly, over and over again, blasts of bright blue and white flames shot out form the shoulder weapons and seared through the beasts that charged them.
Without missing, the three warriors were able to bring down close to half of the rest of the drones from their crouched position in the street.
Either their shoulder weapons had run dry or overheated, Cassandra was not sure, but as she continued to shoot at the drones that lunged forth, she noticed that the three warriors had now stood and were charging towards the horde that still attacked the humans, wielding their spears and howling under their masks.
The two forces clashed together like familiar old enemies as they struggled for victory in deadly battle.
The humans continued to wage war on the horde of drones from the front of the line, while the alien warriors attacked from the flank as the remaining larger group of alien fighters continued to take out the swarm that encroached on them from the other direction at the far end of the block.
Cassandra watched the numbers in her own group deplete. They were making progress in the horde of attacking drones, but as they were falling back, some were falling permanently.
The alien warriors, she noticed as she glanced down the street, seemed to be finishing with the last few of the horde that had attacked them as a few were already starting towards the group of bugs in front of her.
She warily eyed the other wave of bugs piling into the battle area from down the block that charged directly into the larger group of alien fighters. Her eyes widened and she went back to firing, becoming very aware of how light her reserve ammunition bag felt on her waist.
Slowly, the humans fell back as their ammo supply dwindled. Cassandra heard Lewis call to Carlos for more ammunition and Carlos threw him what he announced to be his last clip.
She looked around and noticed that many of the survivors of the group were beginning to run for shelter to hide, as their guns went dry and the attacking horde continued forth.
As the warrior aliens joined their force back into one to attack to bugs, the creatures seemed to become completely unconcerned about attacking the humans.
They turned their attack sideways and tried with all their force to break the line of the fighting aliens. The enraged beasts attacked the alien fighters with such hatred Cassandra thought even the pitch of their voices had changed to mimic their hatred.
She was certain that these two very different species were well acquainted with one another.
The warriors continued to carve through their enemies with incredible speed and prowess, which only seemed to further enrage the nightmarish creatures.
Cassandra quickly ran her rifle dry and bolted some distance away with Lewis and Carlos. They tucked themselves against the side of a building and Cassandra reloaded with her second to last clip before looking back at the scene just beyond her.
The alien fighters fired their blue shots at the creatures while simultaneously carving through them with the variety of weapons they held in their hands.
Her eyes followed the gray skinned commander of the aliens as he bolted across the street, pursued by four of the angry beasts. The warrior put just enough distance between himself and his would be killers before he spun around on his heels and sliced his bladed spear into the air.
She was stunned as the four creatures dropped to the ground just a moment after each other. The warrior had sliced perfectly through the necks of all four creatures in one well timed swipe and their acidic, headless bodies clattered to the ground.
Without taking a moment to even catch his breath he ran towards the attacking creatures one more time and drove his spear through one creature that was on all fours on the ground in front of him.
The bug numbers began to thin and the stunned humans began to creep slowly out of their hiding places, evaluating the scene and the still standing band of thirteen warrior aliens.
The fighters were beginning to pull themselves together once again after holding out for two major victories in the early evening hours. The sky was just turning black and the moon was beginning to shine down on the bloody scene when her voice rang out on the breeze.
Cassandra froze and felt her heart skip several beats. The warriors in the street seemed to stop and stare off at one particular spot in the direction of the queen's enraged shriek.
Cassandra watched as the commander she had noticed before seemed to quickly indicate to the others where they should go and without any hesitation, the other warriors followed the first one's commands obediently.
Cassandra could feel the vibrations in the ground from the massive queen drawing near. She clenched her rifle tightly reminding herself that she only had one more clip of ammunition, Lewis was on his last one, and Carlos was out.
She could see some her fallen companions' weapons in the street near the battle.
One rifle lay at the feet of the first alien as he crouched down between two buildings and watched as the others prepared for the queen's arrival as instructed by their commander, who was further down the street.
She glanced to the other aliens and noticed that some of them were crawling up the sides of the buildings around them with just as much speed and agility as the bugs. She found herself wondering if the two species were related in some way. They were both equally as strong, equally as athletic, unquestionably deadly, and they seemed to intimately know one another.
Whether they were warring kin or enemies at the instinctual level, she did not know, but it did seem to her that the two different races were indeed well evolved to battle one another.
She was grateful that at least for now it seemed that the new alien arrivals were on the same side as the humans.
Her mind drifted for a moment, wondering where the aliens had come from and how this battle had started. A hundred questioned flooded into her mind but she squeezed her eyes and forced them all out as the queen let loose another fearsome shriek and made her appearance.
The massive enraged creature came barreling down a side street. Cassandra craned her neck around the corner of the building she pressed her back to so she could see better. She saw the queen running on two legs, like a massive tyrannosaurus.
The thing was hissing wildly into the air and she stomped along the ground, charging straight towards her fallen offspring. She slowed her pace as she neared the strewn piles of her drone children and she stretched her jaws and offered a satanic shriek to the awaiting warriors.
Cassandra thought that the queen seemed very certain that the warriors were there. Though as she looked to where she knew at least one was waiting, she could not see him.
She frowned, not sure if he had moved from his chosen spot or not. She looked again to be certain he was not there. She thought she saw a shimmer in the moonlight where he used to be, but she did not see the alien warrior.
She glanced back to the queen, who seemed to be aware that there was a threat nearby and consciously thought about her next move. The creature backed away, swishing her massive tail behind her as she swung her wide head side to side and hissed.
Cassandra crouched low and crept a little closer to the corner of the building to get an even better view of what was going on. Lewis whispered sharply to her through his gritted teeth for her to stop and get back, but she ignored him. Curious to know what would happen next, Cassandra poked her head around the corner of the building.
The queen howled wildly into the air and suddenly lunged at a building across the street and one block away from where Cassandra crouched.
She did not even see the warrior that was on the rooftop there, but somehow the queen knew he was there. She crouched low for a moment and stretched her neck and head almost straight as she shrieked once more and massive, sharp toothed jaws opened wide to release the second, inner set of razor sharp almost crystal looking teeth.
Her long, wisplike tail waved side to side and for a moment the creature swayed. Cassandra was not sure what the queen was thinking, but the thing shot off towards that building like a rocket and clenched her razor sharp rows of clearish white teeth around the warrior that crouched on the building roof.
At first glance the queen's mouth looked empty, but was filling with bright green blood. A spark of blue light flickered from between her teeth and suddenly the crushed, bloody corpse of one of the warriors appeared in her jaws.
Cassandra realized at that moment that the warriors were invisible. They had made themselves unable to be seen, but somehow some other sense had led the queen to one's location.
Suddenly the others sprung into action.
They opened fire on her and their bright blue flames that cast from their shoulder cannons slammed into the queen all at once. Even she was too powerful for the warrior's bladed weapons it seemed.
The fire bolts hit into the massive queen's abdomen and she was thrown backwards from the impact.
The tattered corpse in her teeth was cast with such a force from her mouth that it slammed into a building and skidded down the side with a dull thud, leaving a thick smear of bright green blood down the wall and on to the sidewalk.
The queen howled and leapt back up as the group of warriors fearlessly charged at her.
The warriors launched themselves at the massive queen just as she rose to her feet.
One of them, Cassandra could tell it was the aliens' commander, grabbed at the large protrusions on her back and he was lifted onto her like he was a cowboy trying to stay on the bull for a few seconds longer.
The queen shrieked and howled as she whipped around and used her tail like a scorpion's, stabbing at her own back to get the warrior off of her.
He raised his spear with one hand, while holding on to the spinous process with the other, and dug it deeply into her neck. One of the others slammed his spear into her leg, while Cassandra could see that three more dug their weapons straight into her abdomen where their blasts had gone, further injuring already open wounds.
The queen howled and reared up. She toppled over backwards and slammed to the ground, writhing, injured badly, but still very much alive.
The warrior that had been on her back leapt off just in time before she fell over on top of him and crushed him. He spun around and looked at the queen while the rest of his group moved in onto the downed beast.
She tried to pull herself upright while she whipped her tail angrily about, attempting to hit or impale the approaching warriors. They were able to avoid her tail which seemed to upset the queen even more.
She howled angrily and used all her might to pull herself upright. She almost made it halfway to her feet when the band of warriors that had encircled her cast off their spears and blades at the queen.
Each and every well aimed weapon that the warriors threw impaled the queen into her massive skull. She shrieked as the first one hit a little before the rest, and when the other blades slammed into her head she dropped back to the ground without another sound.
In the quiet air Cassandra could hear the acid from the queen's carcass burning in to the ground.
She jumped when a wild yell rang out into the air. Looking back down the street behind her she saw what was left of the group coming out of their hiding places, cheering and yelling, clapping and raising their hands into the air, praising the aliens for bringing down an entire hive and a queen in front of their eyes.
Cassandra, Lewis, and Carlos crept out from around the building and stood quietly in the street, staring in wide eyed disbelief at the alien creatures that stood around their kill and watched the humans appear in the street through their expressionless masks.
The aliens seemed completely uninterested in the group of cheering humans at all. They turned to the queen and retrieved their weapons and once reorganized, the commander of the group began to lead them away without any acknowledgment at all to the humans they had just saved.
One of the men from the group ran over to the alien commander as he turned his back and took a few steps away. The man called out to the alien, angrily requesting for the being to halt and explain themselves to him.
As soon as the curious and agitated human was within reach of the commander alien, he spun around and batted his forearm solidly into the man's chest, sending him crashing backwards several feet away, gasping for breath from the impact with the metal gauntlet that covered the creature's forearm.
Cassandra and the others jogged over to help the man to his feet, all looking warily at the group of alien warriors as they disappeared down a street and turned invisible once more.
She felt herself giving the newcomers a dirty look. They were obviously here to kill the bugs and destroy their hives; that much was for sure.
Though she could not understand what prompted the arrival of the newcomers, she found it utterly rude of them to treat the humans in their midst with such disregard. The least they could have done was show any concern at all to their presence.
The group quickly debated about the aliens, trying to cover topics from how they got there to what the next the step should be. Everyone agreed that it was apparent the aliens had no regard for the humans at all, and it angered the group slightly to have seen the alien newcomers parade down the street as though they owned the planet.
"Just what we need, another rung lower on the food chain." Someone muttered as the group of humans regrouped and tried to figure out what was next.
"I think we should follow them." Cassandra suggested quickly.
"Are you crazy?" One man protested.
"We should see where they go." She said in a quiet, calm whisper and eyed Lewis determinedly.
"We don't know what they are, Cassy." Lewis started to protest softly.
"Exactly why we should follow after them and see."
"You're nuts, kid," one person in the group snapped at Cassandra. "Didn't you see what they just did to Jacob?" He indicated the man who had been hit, still gasping for air while Carlos tried to help him.
"But they didn't kill him." Cassandra said shaking her head slowly.
She turned back to Lewis. "If they can do that to those," she pointed to the destruction all around them. "They could have certainly killed him."
There was a brief moment of silence while Lewis and the rest of the group seemed to ponder what to do next.
Curiosity took control.
Before the creatures had too much time to wander so far that the humans would be searching for them all night long, the group jumped to their feet and sprinted down the street.
After a few blocks they slowed their pace and scanned the streets around them for any sign of the alien warriors. They warily looked through the homes, yards, and trees of the residential area they had strutted in to, quietly whispering to each other as they searched for signs of alien life.
"This is so stupid," one whispered. "Out here in the open with almost no ammo now."
"Maybe we won't find the aliens," another said shakily.
"We have to find them," Cassandra said determinedly.
She saw Lewis cast her a silent glance.
The group walked for close to an hour. If the aliens were anywhere nearby at all, they were not going to make themselves known to the humans searching for them.
Likewise, if there were any drones in the vicinity, they too were not giving off tell tale signs of their presence. Finally, dismayed, the group decided to call off the search until dawn.
It would be slightly safer to search for the alien fighters under the morning sun. They marched up the front stairs of a long ago abandoned house, slammed the front door open and the group filed inside for some rest.
They spent a long, sleepless night muttering to themselves inside the dark home. Each person was too on edge over all the events that had taken place in the last forty eight hours.
A myriad of emotions filled the rooms of the house throughout the night as the group anxiously discussed the alien warriors. Many expressed instant animosity towards the alien arrivals, chastising them for their lack any respect for the humans they had encountered.
Those who delved into hating the alien race had by morning, already composed a complete outline of the creatures' behavior and reasons for being on Earth.
Since no one knew the real reason why, it was easy to draw a negative outlook on the mandibled, dread locked, armored warriors and label them a new found threat to humanity.
Others were just beginning to allow to it to sink in to their minds that there really was life beyond Earth, though they too established their own interpretation of the aliens' intentions.
Cassandra sat with Lewis and Carlos on the living room sofa the whole night. She silently fiddled with the last clip of ammo she possessed for her rifle, listening half heartedly to Lewis and Carlos's debates over the alien creatures.
Many of the people in the room were concentrating solely on the aliens themselves, from describing their opinions of the aliens' appearances to who or what they were, why they had come, and where they had come from.
Others debated on the behavior of the aliens, while more were completely focused on the weaponry they possessed and how they might garner a few their own alien rifles.
Cassandra agreed with some the suppositions, but not with others' thoughts and she too, by dawn's light, had drawn her own conclusions about the alien creatures, which she did not offer into the pot.
She was certain beyond any doubt at all that the two races had a history together. The warriors appeared to know too well what to expect and had obviously come too well prepared to fight the hordes of the deadly bugs for just chance.
They had come so completely prepared with weaponry and armor and skill to eliminate the drones and explosives to destroy entire hives that in less than forty eight hours, hundreds, perhaps even thousands of dismembered drone carcasses and one queen littered the streets of the city, there was no other conclusion to come to. The alien warriors obviously knew exactly what they were doing.
For some reason that she could not completely describe, she was highly irritated by the initial attitude of the alien fighters towards the human survivors.
After struggling for so long against immeasurable odds simply to survive on the planet that humans had lost all command over, Cassandra decided the aliens did not have the right to barge into the war and strut around like they owned the place and cast humans aside like they were a nuisance.
She was not sure what she thought the aliens should behave like, but as the image of the commander slamming down the man who was trying to catch his attention filled her mind, she felt a flash of anger well up inside her.
She shut her eyes and shook her head, trying hard to rid herself of the thoughts that flooded through her mind and the confusing questions that came with them.
The sun was beginning to peek through the drawn curtains on the window and the group, feeling slightly less aroused over the arrival of the aliens, readied themselves to head back out into the streets and search once more for the mysterious warriors.
They crept out onto the porch and scanned the streets with their eyes and barely filled weapons.
The spring time sun was poking up through the early morning clouds creating a pinkish orange haze against the budding leaves on nearby trees.
Fluffy clouds filled the sky and as long as one looked up towards the sky, there was peace and normalcy in the air and all was as it should be.
However, when Cassandra cast her eyes back to the street, nothing was normal. The emptiness around her had gone on so long that it was almost beginning to feel normal, or at least routine, but it never felt right. Every street was filled with empty, dark homes.
The streets of the neighborhood they walked through were quiet and clear and clean, which only made it look and feel all that much more uncomfortable and out of place. Cars were still parked in the driveways, homes were untouched, there was no trash or debris strewn around the streets, and there was no sign of death or destruction.
The odd musky smell filled the air again and Cassandra tried again to identify it. It was pungent, but not repulsive, though the scent did make the air feel heavy as she breathed in while she walked.
After walking for a good portion of the day, the group stopped to rest briefly in a small field. They walked out of one city, into another, and straight through until they came to rural countryside on the far side of the second city and they had not seen a thing in their journey.
Cassandra was beginning to wonder if the search was hopeless. Somehow, she imagined that if the aliens did not want to be found, they would not be found, and from their displays early last evening, it seemed clear that the beings wanted little to do with humans at all.
They began to think that if they found drones, or a hive, they might find the alien warriors, but the next city over was empty of any sort of life at all, including bug hives.
So they rested in a small open field and quietly discussed what to do next. They tried to calculate where the alien pack that they were hunting might be. Lewis thought aloud for a moment.
"Assuming they walked non-stop since last night...with as much ground as they could cover..."
"They could be forty miles away for all we know," someone cut him off.
Lewis glanced up and corrected the man. "More than that."
"And they could be in any direction," another added.
"Maybe they got into a space ship or something? Maybe they're gone"
"Maybe they killed all of them everywhere." Someone hoped wistfully.
"Could this war be over? Just like that?" Someone else added in hopefully.
"We should just concentrate on trying to find ammo and supplies and get into some shelter until we figure this out." Another said quickly.
"To hell with that," someone else argued throatily. "Those big bastards have weapons the likes of which I've never seen before and we've all seen what they do to those bugs. We should find the aliens, follow the weapons. That's how we'll win this war."
"No man, that's how they'll win this war," the other hollered back shakily. "I for one just want to hide out until it's done."
"Ah," the raspy man grunted and waved his hands at the reluctant man.
"Do you think they'll just give you their guns?" Cassandra asked sharply.
Lewis glanced at her, slightly smiling at her point.
"Maybe if I say 'please' they will," the man shot back at her.
Cassandra rolled her eyes, doubting highly that no matter how nicely they might be asked, the alien warriors were not going to part with their weaponry to arm the humans.
"Alright," Lewis called out in a flat tone. "We'll try one more time, we'll head north, if we don't find anything by nightfall, we'll seek supplies and shelter. But we do have to try to find ammo soon, or we'll be arming ourselves with sticks and stones."
Nodding silently in agreement with Lewis, the group pulled to their feet and in a few moments, they were headed north. It all seemed so odd to Cassandra.
She had spent months trying to avoid drone or hive encounters, and now she was part of a group actually searching for a hive.
With little ammunition for their weapons, driven on by some undefinable curiosity created by the alien warriors, the group of people marched forth actually hoping to find the bug drones in their resin hives, and with them, the alien warriors.
Four more hours passed. Her feet were getting weary from walking and Cassandra was certain they would not find their destination at all.
Truly, the aliens could have gone anywhere and the drones could be everywhere. She began to feel that they were all in great danger and suddenly, as if to confirm that thought, Cassandra felt the little hairs on her neck stand up. She stopped and glanced around.
Perhaps it was only the gentle, cool breeze that brushed her face delicately that was making her skin tingle, she could not be sure. She looked around the small town, down the empty streets, between the dark buildings, and something familiar caught her eye.
She noticed out of the corner of her eye, a glimmer, a ripple in the air that she was sure was moving. Her eyes widened and a slight victorious smile formed on her face. Without a word she turned and started down the street away from the group. Lewis called sharply to her and darted after her. He grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop.
"What are you doing?" He whispered angrily to her.
"I see them. Up ahead. They're here."
Lewis glanced to where she was pointing and contemplated the street for a moment. He swayed his head and squinted his eyes but saw nothing.
He looked back to her with an uncertain gaze, but she released herself from his grip and they started down the street, followed quickly by the rest of the group.
Suddenly a loud booming sound echoed through the empty streets followed immediately by the resounding shrieks of alien drones and loud howls of the alien warriors.
Indeed a battle had just begun not more than ten blocks away. Cassandra picked up her pace with the rest of the group as they ran towards the sounds of the battle. They slammed to a halt just at the edge of the small town and took in the sight, frozen in awe and wonder and unable to move.
The lone street that led out of the downtown area of the small suburb and winded its way between large fields on either side of the road was barricaded off by a line of tanks and military vehicles that had at some point tried to defend their lands against the enemy invaders.
Just beyond the vehicles, a sea of drone bugs, Cassandra thought perhaps five hundred, maybe more, charged forth and surrounded the group of alien warriors in the middle of the road.
The well-armed fighters howled at their enemy, urging them on. The drones charged straight to their deaths, truly proving they had no sense of self preservation.
The small army of alien warriors, at least thirty strong, shot and sliced through them easily. The drones simply clamored over their fallen kin without a care, using sheer numbers and acid blood and deadly claws and teeth and tails as their defense, which the alien fighters seemed to circumvent easily.
They stood their ground, holding out a rectangular shape in the middle of the street, brutally slaying the drones that drew too close and shooting the bright blue fiery bolts out of their shoulder weapons and from a few hand held casters of the same sort.
The white and blue blasts moved with such force through the air that they left a ripple in their path behind them. Every shot seemed to automatically know exactly where to go and Cassandra was certain that not one blast missed its target. Some of the shots even powered through two or three of the drones at a time.
Feeling utterly useless with such limited ammunition for their weapons, the group of people simply gaped in amazement at the battle and stayed at a distance.
They did all they could do which was solely to watch the battle in wonder. The warriors in the street became so surrounded by their angry enemies that Cassandra and the others could not even see them at one point.
It seemed like the drones were trying to climb on top of one another to get to the alien fighters, and they seemed utterly enraged by their failing attempts.
Slowly, the warriors managed to cut through the horde until there were less than half remaining. The bodies piling up in the street forced the fighters to back off and find new ground to stand on just so they could get a clear shot at their enemies.
They began to file further down the street and the horde followed accordingly, shrieking and hissing as they continued their charge.
Lewis dropped to his knees and crawled cautiously towards the line of tanks and humvees when the drone horde was enough of a distance away that he was sure he could get to the vehicles safely.
Cassandra whispered as loud as she could to Lewis but he ignored her and continued forward. She quickly followed after him as she realized that he was going to search the vehicles for weapons and ammunition.
When the rest of the group caught on to what was going on, they too trotted up to the line of tanks. They did not find much, but they did come out with a few extra clips of ammunition for their weapons.
Cassandra glanced up and noticed the battle in the street was beginning to come to an end. She did not know how long the battle had been going on, but thought that it was only about twenty minutes or so from the start of the fight before the road and fields had become a massive graveyard and the warriors at the far side were slicing through their last wave of enemies.
She filed around the line of vehicles and stood at the near side of the battle field, watching the group of warriors cut through the very last of the drones, before she even realized they had been watching the battle for nearly an hour.
She could see some glowing blood dripping from a few of the warriors, but the injuries did not seem serious from what she could tell, or at least it appeared as though none of the warrior collapsed or seemed to be writhing in pain.
She eyed the commander of the group who was in the lead position of the formation. He pulled his spear out of the drone at his feet and flicked the acid off the tip of the sharp metal blade.
Cassandra whispered to herself as she noticed that their weapons were resistant to the acid blood of the drones. Until then, she had not seen anything that could stop the acid burn. She glanced to another warrior and noticed that he had a burned spot on his arm, but the armor above the wound was not damaged.
The warriors pulled to an eerie halt as they appeared to look around as though they were scanning the countryside for more threats. She thought they did look a little breathless while the last of them retracted his weapon from his kill.
They stood and glanced over their kills for a moment as they caught their breath, resting in the most defensive way possible, still holding their weapons ready for use.
Cassandra stepped sideways cautiously, navigating to the far end of the acid burned field as the group behind her began to catch up.
She kept her eyes warily on the leader of the warrior group, trying to imagine what his expression was under the mask he wore. He looked far across the field of his victory and raised his chin at the humans he saw circling the battle field.
A savage howl echoed out from under his mask and the others in the group growled and yelled loudly in response. Cassandra and the others stopped for a moment and eyed the aliens, not sure if the aggressive vocalizations they made were some sort of victory cheer or warning to stay away, or both.
They watched the warriors watch them for a moment before the aliens their backs once more and stalked off quickly, disappearing into the crisp morning air as they turned invisible once again.
Determined not to let the group of aliens out of sight, Cassandra and the others picked up their pace and bolted down the street after the disappearing creatures. They ran after the warriors for several miles before they stopped once more, breathless, and having lost the invisible creatures once more.
Cassandra paced the street with her hands on her hips as she fought for breath, silently cursing to herself, frustrated that they kept on losing the group of aliens, but a flicker of light in the distance caught her attention.
At first she thought it was lightening flashing across the sky, for it was the same color and created the same flashing effect. She waited for a moment and stared at the spot where she thought the light came from.
When she saw multiple flashes from the ground sparking and lighting up the far distance, beyond the vast stretch of unharvested crop fields and just down a rolling hillside, Cassandra chirped out to the resting group and headed off through the fields, quickly pursued by Lewis and the others.
They reached the bottom of the valley and followed a path of woods that served as separation between two massive wheat fields. Cassandra eyed the flashes of light through the trees and sped towards them like a beacon in the dusk.
The group bolted through the trees, foolishly forgetting about the possible drones that could be in the area. They charged on pure adrenaline towards the next battle, staying silent and focusing all their energy on bolting as quickly as they could through the trees.
The flat fields had turned into another downward slope, and far below the stunned group, the alien warriors were at work again.
As the sun was setting and the sky turned to a deep red hue, the shadows cast into the valley below the hill made it hard to see exactly what was going on from such a distance.
"My God," Lewis gasped as he realized what he was looking at through the scope of his rifle.
"What is it?" Cassandra asked impatiently.
Lewis handed her the weapon and she lowered her eye to the scope and watched as each flicker of burning blue light illuminated the scene for a few seconds.
In between bursts of light, Cassandra wondered for a moment how the aliens could see what they were doing, but she quickly decided that they were probably more than capable of seeing in the dark. Through the flashes from their weapons, and between trees, Cassandra could see that the aliens were not killing drones.
There seemed to be no drones in the area. The aliens were destroying eggs. They had found a massive egg field.
Cassandra squinted her eyes and scanned through the trees worriedly. Where there were eggs, she knew, there was an egg layer. A queen was not a matter to be taken lightly.
Short of lobbing grenades and hoping for the best, Cassandra had not known a human that had successfully killed a queen, but she had already seen the never ending warriors take down one queen.
She scanned the trees looking for the queen that she knew would arrive. To the left in the valley below, there were only open fields. In the other directions the woods sprawled on, up a hill and out of sight.
She watched carefully, trying to see the queen before the warriors did in case they did not know she would be coming. Cassandra shook her head to herself and grunted. She wanted to see the warriors win, but she knew there was nothing she could do if a queen was coming to catch the aliens unaware.
When the massive beast did finally appear, the warriors were anything but surprised. They attacked her with such force it seemed like the group had planned every step of the onslaught.
The warriors carved through the drones that flooded into the scene with the queen, and they fought viciously as the night set in. The queen commanded her drones into the attack.
With her as their guide, they did not just simply charge forth into the tips of the spears that the warriors held, nor did they jump into the air to greet the blasts of blue flame that would sear through them.
The drones leapt to the sides, took to the trees, and attacked from every angle, completely surrounding the large group of warriors.
Cassandra watched with the others and felt her heart begin to beat faster with every passing second. Through the continued flashes of light she could see that the warriors were trying to kill the drones, avoid the queen, attack the queen, avoid the drones, and stay alive in the process.
The group watched with anticipation and their adrenaline charged through their veins. It did not take very much longer before they decided they needed to join the fight once again.
They bolted through the trees, running down the incline, trying to see in the falling darkness as best they could. Their course led them well around the edge of the trees, away from the battle.
By the time the group was able to get to the lower land and turn back towards the fight, there was little left for them to help with. They charged in to the scene and opened fire on the first drone they saw. Cassandra scanned through the trees and saw that the aliens had their attention turned to the queen herself.
The fighters took to the trees themselves, cloaking their bodies and disappearing into the darkness. The queen hissed and shrieked in a high pitched and angered voice as she scanned through the woods for the alien warriors.
Cassandra quickly joined the others in firing at the remaining drones that had now turned their attention to the human arrivals. Enraged, the queen charged at the band of human shooters.
The scene turned chaotic in a moment. People scattered in every which way to try to avoid the queen as she took down trees in her charge.
Opening fire on her, the group quickly emptied their weapons in a futile attempt at killing the massive beast while half a dozen warriors, seemingly unappreciative of the unnecessary efforts of the human fighters charged in towards her for the final kill.
The queen seemed undeterred by the meaningless attempt to end her life and she hissed loudly into the air as she spun back around to face her far more deadly attackers.
Cassandra fumbled with her ammo sack and pulled out a clip, quickly trying to reload her empty weapon. She glanced over to the two people crouched just a few feet away from her, who were both trying to fill their weapons and seemed to be paying no attention to their surroundings.
Before Cassandra could even breathe deep enough to yell out, the queen sliced her tail through the trees sharply as she turned her back to the human group, cutting through bark with a loud crash, and her tail landed firmly on top of the two crouched people.
The spikes on her tail slammed through the two bodies and drove so deep into the ground she pulled three times before she managed to get her own tail unstuck.
Cassandra howled and jumped back as Lewis called loudly to her. She turned her weapon on the queen and slammed the clip into the handle of her weapon.
Just as she was about to pull the trigger, a decloaking alien warrior leapt out of a tree and landed a penetrating spear blow firmly in the queen's head.
Thrown off by the attack, the queen spun around and howled loudly and within seconds she was under so much fire from the aliens in the trees all around her, she dropped to the ground.
Scattering and regrouping, the group of rattled humans sprinted as far away from the battle as they could before stopping to watch the warriors at work. It appeared that they did not need the help of the humans after all and as they stalked out of the woods leaving the dead queen in their midst, they offered no sort of acknowledgment to the group of people that watched them go.
"Jesus," Carlos whispered, "do these things ever stop?
"They're taking them out hive by hive." Someone responded in amazement.
"What the hell are they some kind of extraterrestrial exterminators?" Another person piped up.
Cassandra chuckled. The words sounded so funny, but truly that was what the aliens seemed like for the moment.
They had made it abundantly clear they had no interest in the humans, nor did they appear to need any back up from them. They simply killed the bugs and moved on without any consideration to the natives.
She formed a little smile on her face as she started through the trees with the group trailing after the alien warriors that had once again turned their backs on the humans that followed them.
"Are you all right?" Lewis asked Cassandra softly.
"Yeah, I'm fine," she responded smiling.
"Look, just don't... take off like that again anymore, O.K.?"
Cassandra nodded to Lewis, grateful for the concern.
She felt a little silly for having to have been told not to run off, but she could not help indulge her curiosity.
She felt an excitement she had not experienced in months. She wanted to understand what the aliens were, and why they had come. The arrival of the aliens had sparked something in her, something she had not been privy to in quite some time, hope.