CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
After three weeks, the relationship forged between the two groups was set almost set in stone. There was an unspoken, undiscussed but totally understood set of rules the each particular species seemed to know to follow on an instinctual level.
At times, Cassandra found it almost amusing. The warriors were so unsociable towards the humans that times immediately following a battle, where the two races might have crossed into each other's sides of the battlefields, they seemed rigid and awkward as they consciously tried not to acknowledge the group of humans too much.
Likewise, the way the people in her group scattered out of the way when a warrior walked towards them made the unusual situation look almost more like an odd sort of dance.
She wasn't sure if the human group that insisted on tailing the pack of alien hunters was viewed as an annoyance or a curiosity, but Cassandra could not help to believe that this was the way the rocky relationship needed to be.
It seemed that the two species were not destined for any great level of common friendship or alliance, however, the aliens didn't seem to mind or be bothered by the humans so long as the humans never got too close, and after every fight, every battle, every time the humans camped and survived, the hunters always returned to within visual range of the human group.
The warriors were not really exactly on the humans' side, they just were not their enemy at any particular moment either. She had no doubt in her mind that given the urge, any one of the massive warriors, would quickly and easily kill a human, but at least for the last few weeks, the aliens had made their displeasure known with sharp growls and the occasional shove.
There was a fragile balance between the two groups and sometimes, the barrier between them was so thick Cassandra was certain she could see it in the air.
The aliens offered no concern for the safety of the humans as they entered straight into active bug hives. It was the group's continued decision to follow the aliens anyway.
The warriors had never discussed risks and safety regulations with the humans that tailed them. Entering a hive had gone from complete suicide of the worst imaginable sort and something desperately avoided at all costs, to almost a routine event.
Many people in the group began to notice the finely knit inter-workings in the warrior group. Each member of the group had their own particular job to be done inside each hive and their system seemed to work quite finely as the warriors fine-tuned their assaults each and every time, becoming more efficient bug killers.
The alien warriors were able to kill hundreds of bugs, even thousands, destroying whole hives and queens and eggs with apparent ease in part because of their incredible array of weaponry and skills using them, but also, Lewis once commented, because of the flawless chain of command that the group followed.
Their leader was their leader and there was no question about it. Though the watching humans could never understand a hint of the strange language that the group's commander would speak, he seemed to always order his group in the most beneficial way.
The leader's troops seemed to always follow his order and there were no arguments amongst the ranks once the leader spoke his part. His voice resonated firmly, and commanded respect the instant he spoke; he would even bring the human followers to a halt sometimes from a block or more away.
He was wise, there was no doubt of it, and even more so a cunning and capable warrior and a brutal killer than the rest of his ranks combined. Each one of the warriors was strong, muscular, and obviously well versed in killing, but the Leader, whom Cassandra and the others in had unanimously agreed was much older than the rest of the aliens, seemed to have his experience etched into his fading grey skin.
Lewis seemed to be impressed at the leader's ability to seemingly read the minds of his prey. The alien commander was able to anticipate the bugs' attacks and direct his group accordingly, even occasionally issuing a clear cut and unquestioning hand signal or gesture to the human groups, who obeyed without question most of the time.
The warriors were always able to get a heads up on the bugs and they were able to counter the intelligent queen and her nearly equally as well coordinated attacks. The leader was able to think quickly on his feet and redirect his group accordingly to the ever changing moment of battle.
Cassandra did not know whether or not the aliens noticed or cared, but the little group of humans was quickly becoming much more efficient killers than they had been before.
Their ammunition was not getting spent as quickly and every person noticed a higher tally of kills amongst the group. Some of the members had even begun to keep score, even small trophies like teeth or claws, much like the alien warriors' own boney necklaces each one wore.
There was a new feeling amongst the group, a new confidence, and a stronger sensation of hope, something that none had felt in a long time. Cassandra began to notice changes in the group's behaviors and conversations as well.
After another brief but intense battle, both groups found a suitable place to rest as the morning light cracked the sky on a warm morning in late spring.
The humans rested inside a large department store while the aliens remained outside. It was awkward to have the aliens so close, just outside the doors to the building where the humans scavenged shelves and boxes for supplies and food, and it was obvious that neither side was terribly with the arrangement.
The alien hunters kept their limits known.
The aliens and the humans had, at a few points in the last weeks, camped in even closer proximity, though it was uncomfortable for both parties.
The aliens seemed less concerned about being side by side with humans during the heat of battle than they were during periods of rest.
After a few harsh lessons from the aggressive aliens, the human group for the most part kept to themselves, only idly watching the aliens with a passing curiosity.
No one made any attempts to communicate with the warriors, nor to intervene into their space or habits. Cassandra kept her curiosity silent, and though determined to understand the aliens better, she was also careful to keep her attempts out of the sight of the entire group.
As the group scavenged through the building looking for supplies of any kind, Cassandra noticed something quite different about the conversations on that particular early morning.
Many people in the group reflected upon what they used to do before the infestation. They recounted tales of family gatherings, graduations, times shared with friends at bars and barbecues and likes and dislikes about their former jobs.
Smiles flooded the group as they allowed their voices to rise in laughter as they joked and told stories to one another about good times from long ago. Cassandra could not quite recall when the last time such a light and casual conversation had been struck up.
There was a time when it would have done absolutely no good to discuss what was and remind people of all that they had lost, but now people reflected about what was and what would be with a sense of hope and optimism that she had not quite heard before.
They recounted stories of their old lives with a glimmer in their eyes and a look on their faces that defined the hope they were feeling.
They soon shifted to thoughts of the future. They did not talk about any great victories over the final bug hive, but they did talk wantonly about what they would do once life returned to normal.
There was no discussion of cleaning up the cities, rebuilding the planet, and reconstructing the forever changed human civilization, but many in the group did fantasize about their own futures in a world where nothing was wrong, where nothing was out of place.
Cassandra thought about the future, too, although she still had trouble envisioning exactly where the next day would take her, let alone the next decade.
Still, each person had begun to realize that they had been given a new lease on life. Their lives, that had once been so vague, so undefined, now had a purpose, a goal, a bright light at the end of the tunnel that perhaps was gleaming just a little brighter each passing day.
While the sun rose up and the human group settled to rest inside, the alien group settled to rest and tended to their injuries outside. Cassandra glanced out towards the aliens from time to time throughout the day.
The group was mainly scattered around a wide area, some keeping guard, others perhaps sleeping, she could not quite tell.
As evening set and Cassandra's guard duty ended, she once again slipped away, pressing in close to the alien group. She watched them eat, drink, talk, rest, and keep guard, and noticed as she inched just a little closer, perhaps the closest yet, only a dozen yards away, that one of the warriors definitely glanced towards her with his head.
He appeared to be talking to the group's commander who immediately glanced with a distinct nod in her direction while the speaking warrior very noticeably gestured towards her direction.
There was no question she had been noticed. Perhaps this time, she thought, she got too close; pressed in too far.
She could feel her heart pounding as she held her breath and tried to hunker down behind a concrete garden wall, almost immediately regretting her mistake but hoping the aliens would choose to ignore her as they had been for weeks.
The alien language briefly exchanged between two of the warriors and their leader seemed to indicate perhaps they were discussing her presence when one of them clearly vocalized a sound that could only be described as a laugh.
Cassandra smirked, suddenly feeling rather embarrassed.
She did not know what the three aliens were discussing, but somehow she got the distinct impression that she was at the butt end of their joke. She could feel her heart slowly stop pounding.
Instead of nervous apprehension, suddenly Cassandra was filled with the urge to just stand up and walk right over to the aliens. Whatever they had laughed at, she was not happy about it.
It was no secret she was watching them, so she decided she might as well stand up and approach them. She swallowed softly, quelled her pounding chest, and began to rise her feet.
At that exact moment, the unmistakable shrieking calls of the bug drones rang out and the warriors leapt up with catlike reflexes and alarming speed. They grabbed their variety of weapons from the ground around them and Cassandra, now on her feet as well, stood quite still, facing the direction of the shrieking, as the group of aliens began to head out under their leader's direction.
Two of the aliens walked right past her, only feet away, which caught her attention back to her immediate surroundings and she turned once again towards the departing group, eyeing the leader readily approaching her.
Directing his group out to battle, he brought up the rear of the formation as they darted speedily towards the shrieking in the night.
Cassandra felt her body weaken and tremble as the gray haired warrior, clutching a spear that was as long as he was tall, growled something under his breath. She knew they were words, but what he was saying, or who he was saying them to, she could not tell.
He had just directed his group to battle, but his eyes were clearly locked on her as she barely lifted her own to look at him for a fraction of a second. The leader stalked towards her and passed by her so closely he nudged her shoulder with his elbow as he brushed by while she swayed shakily on the spot.
She watched him leave and suddenly felt both foolish and exhilarated. Her heart pounded once again, so loudly it nearly drowned out the distant calls of the bugs.
Cassandra rejoined the rest of her group quickly and quietly. With everyone distracted by the calls through the night air and the departing warrior group, no one noticed her sneak back into the building from the back entrance.
The remainder of the night was a silent one. Only a few people whispered amongst themselves, wondering quietly about the fate of the alien warriors and the bugs that called to them.
No one really understood why the hunters did much of anything, including why they always returned back to the area of the human group. Whether they were protecting the humans by choice or by orders, no one knew, but it certainly left everyone open to debate their speculations, and that seemed to become quite the favorite pastime for everyone in the group.
Cassandra quietly listened, tuning in and out to the whispering conversations around her throughout the night while her mind ran rampant recalling the interaction she had with the leader that night. She barely slept a wink and rustled back to her feet sometime just after dawn.
"Well, they're back." Someone said casually, coolly, as though the alien warriors returned exactly on time, as planned.
Cassandra headed outside and turned her eyes in the direction of the rest of the people watching the aliens reappear as the blazing orange sun lit up the sky.
The warriors were taking to look out points all along the area. Most climbed easily to the tops of buildings and scanned the town, while a few others disappeared into a building.
Cassandra and the others curiously watched the aliens survey the lands around them. She wondered what they could see that human eyes could not; somehow she knew it was much more.
Though the warriors did not associate at all with any person in the group, Cassandra truly felt that when one of the warriors might look at her or another human, it was almost like they were staring right through them.
She could almost feel their deep set eyes, well hidden behind the smoky black panels of the helmets that covered them, burning through her body.
The warriors scanned around the lands they surveyed as the human group on the ground below cast their eyes in every direction and whispered amongst themselves. It seemed that the aliens were at least more relaxed but still cautious and alert, always aware of their surroundings.
Cassandra was not sure if that was a good sign or not, but she did feel relieved when the leader of the group descended from a nearby rooftop and headed through a parking lot. He did not make any sounds, but his group knew to follow his lead, and they began to descend from their lookouts, filing into their formation behind him.
The leader marched directly towards the humans as though they were not in front of him. He growled intimidatingly as he approached the rear of the human group and they split off to allow him passage through.
Without even glancing at the men and women around him, the alien leader paraded to the front of the group, striding briskly past Cassandra and Lewis at the other end, and was soon backed by the rest of his ranks.
The aliens started off on their path, and the humans soon followed, keeping only a short distance between themselves and the aliens.
They walked for hours in through several small empty towns and along a wide flowing river, where both parties stopped only briefly to rest. It did not go unnoticed as the aliens stocked up on water, just how eerily similar the two species were.
Though stronger, faster, and possessed of more stamina and requiring less rest than humans, both species still needed to eat, sleep, eliminate, and recover from exertions, and sometimes, only just rarely, both groups did so in the same proximity.
Empty houses lined the river on both sides and the hunters walked along the river bank while the human group kept closer to the homes, eyeing inside as they passed each one, quickly scanning for anything useful or alive.
The warrior seemed unconcerned with anything in the area, which Cassandra found to be reassuring. She had learned that the aliens had a keen sense for their environment, and were almost always aware of what was going on far before anything happened, but when they did go into alert mode, something was going to happen.
She glanced to the warriors from time to time, checking their status as she had gotten into the habit of doing. It was almost like they had their own internal early warning detection device to inform them well ahead of time to any threats about.
Cassandra attributed it to the group's leader's keen sense and obvious experience so she eyed him frequently to see if his senses told him anything.
Nothing seemed to be wrong in this area, or anywhere nearby, she determined based on the leader's actions. The alien group briefly rested and walked on at a moderate pace, scanning the scenery around them as they always did, but they did not seem concerned.
They walked along the river for quite some time and several miles later veered away from the water banks and headed up a hilly city street. As the human group followed along, the distance between the two species began to grow. The aliens had picked up their pace up the hill.
"They're on to something," Lewis said, eyeing the group's leader as well.
The aliens broke into a run halfway up the steep hill and reached the top in a few moments.
Cassandra and the others bolted into a run and headed to the street at the top of the hill as quickly as they could. Panting furiously for breath when she reached the top, Cassandra felt ready to collapse but she forced herself to keep going.
She turned down the street at the top of the hill and followed the sounds of a battle ahead. The group slowed their pace to a jog as they came into view of an all out war.
They stopped and stared at the sight, allowing their eyes to adjust to what they were seeing as they tried to follow the action.
There were three alien warrior bodies on the ground before them, but they were not from the same group the humans tailed. Cassandra saw the leader and his group dead ahead butchering through a dying swarm of bugs and she started forward with the rest of her group through the blood covered streets.
"Jesus." Someone behind her whispered.
She glanced to her left and right and saw two heavily mutilated alien bodies on either side of the street, and ahead one more. Beyond that bitten and clawed carcass, four more bodies came into view, each with an easily recognizable cause of death.
Their chests were bursted apart. Large chunks of goopy green blood and bone was splayed around the cadavers and onto the sidewalk and streets under them.
The grey skinned leader of the alien group howled angrily as he lifted the last of the drones off its feet on the edge of his bladed weapon and spun it around, tossing it off the tip of his weapon and back to the ground like an unwanted piece of garbage.
The drone hissed as its fizzing body quickly became still and lifeless. Cassandra stared at the bloody street and lifted her eyes back up to the leader.
He turned and stared towards her, at first she looked into his helmet covered eyes as though he was looking at her, but she quickly realized he and his troops were focusing on a point just beyond her.
She turned her head slowly to try to focus on what they were seeing, but as she turned gunfire rang out and the shouting group of panicked people around her dropped to the ground. Cassandra threw herself to the bloody pavement as the warriors howled.
"Hold your fire! Hold! HOLD!"
Lewis yelled to the group of humans that shot and screamed as they ran towards his people and the warrior party, who howled and dodged out of Cassandra's sight as they pulled to a flanking position.
Slowly and warily, the group pulled back up to its feet and stared off in the direction of the gunfire waiting for the shooters to appear. Lewis called out once more, but there was no response.
Cassandra glanced to the aliens warriors that were scattered in the street. Their leader kept his eyes locked on some point that Cassandra was certain was inside a nearby building.
The leader growled something and his troops quickly began to move forward. As they did so, several people came charging out the building that the aliens were staring at. Screaming and hollering, the men rushed into the street and opened fire on the alien warriors.
"No!" Cassandra yelled to the men.
Lewis echoed her yell as did several others but it did no good. The men were pushing their way directly into the howling hunters, firing their guns non-stop at the alien group.
Cassandra rushed towards the men with Lewis and a few others, ready to tackle the men down if necessary. As they moved in though, so did the aliens. Cassandra barely saw it coming out of the corner of her eye.
The leader was on the group of firing humans in a moment, so unconcerned about the weapons they held, the men might just as well have been throwing small pebbles at the tough alien bodies.
The leader raised his double bladed staff and struck down, slamming the curving weapon into the first of the human men shooting at him and the other aliens.
Following his lead, three more of the aliens struck out at the humans and almost as quickly as Cassandra could blink her eye, four humans lay dead in the street.
Lewis fought the weapon out of one man's hand and more wrestled guns out of others' grips. Cassandra shouted to another man that was screaming and cursing at the aliens.
The leader was on his way over to, bringing his weapon into the air, readying it for use. Cassandra howled at the firing man to stop shooting, but he did not seem to hear her.
His shooting raged on and she ignited with a burst of speed, desperate to beat the alien commander to him. She reached out to grab hold of the man's arms. She jumped towards him, not noticing that the leader had already begun his downward strike at the man with the handgun.
Cassandra hit into the firing man with such force he toppled sideways and fell to the ground. She saw the blade of the leader's weapon coming just out of the corner of her eye and a piercing scream shot out through her lips as she cowered to the ground and threw her arms over her face and head and squeezed her eyes shut.
She took a heavy breath and opened her eyes, glancing up through the space in between her arms. She saw the blade of the alien leader's weapon only an inch from her head.
She pulled her hands off her face and stared at him in wild wonder, shaking from head to toe, unable to move. With amazing control, the leader had stopped the slice of his blade.
He pulled the weapon back, growled something and glanced at the human group that had formed in the street.
"Cassy!" Lewis called to her as he dove to his knees to help her up while the leader stalked away.
"You O.K.? Jesus!"
With Lewis's help, Cassandra shakily rose to her feet and reassured him that she was alright, but checked herself out anyway just to be sure.
Once certain for herself that she was alright, she glanced back at the leader warily. He was staring at the new group of humans that were eyeing the aliens with fear, hatred, and rage etched into their faces.
The firing had stopped for the moment and Carlos was beginning to reassure the new found survivors about the aliens while Lewis helped Cassandra to her feet.
"They're not here to harm you! Please, don't shoot!"
"Bullshit, man, they've killed us, you see!" A loud man yelled aggressively.
Lewis cast him an angry glare. "You opened fire. Why did you shoot at us?"
"Sorry, bud, you got in the way. Don't let it happen again," the man forewarned grittily. "We want them! We want their God Damned guns! Big ugly alien bastards won't share! We'll kill every one of them, too. Bastards…" the man cursed and spit and glared angrily at the aliens.
"Did you do this?" Lewis questioned, pointing to the alien warrior cadavers along the ground.
The man shook his head and smirked.
"Nah, man, we came too late for that action. They were all dead and their weapons were gone when we got here."
"Look..." Lewis started but he cut his words off as the alien leader started towards the group of humans.
Immediately the tense situation exploded once more.
The new men raised their weapons and were yelling at the aliens that approached them. The aliens growled and the leader raised his right arm, holding his staff vertically in the other hand.
A double edged pair of two and half foot long jagged blades shot out from the housing on the leader's right arm gauntlet. The weapons clicked audibly into place with a little popping noise and the sound of the trigger being depressed on the man's gun that he approached was equally as audible.
Cassandra and the others ducked to the ground as the gun went off. She tried to see what was going on, but she looked down for just a moment and missed the majority of the next tenth of a second.
The leader had sidestepped the fire or walked right through it, she could not tell, but he had imbedded his wrist mounted blades into the chest of the man that tried to shoot him.
Blood spurted out of the man's mouth and nose and he immediately dangled lifelessly at the end of the blades on the leader's arm. Cassandra looked back up and noticed that the rest of the alien group had now ensnared a few select members of the new group of humans.
"Wait! Jesus! Wait!" Carlos begged of the aliens.
He darted forward and tried to gain the alien commander's attention.
Carlos reached out and grabbed hold of the leader's left arm gauntlet and was promptly shoved backward to the ground with a savage growl from the agitated alien.
He snapped his head around and looked at the human on the ground at his feet and Carlos stared wide eyed between the leader's emotionless mask to the limp carcass hanging at the edge of his wrist blades.
The leader snarled something and dropped the body to the ground, ripping the blades out of the man's chest. As the carcass thudded to the hard pavement, all eyes stayed locked on the leader's double blades.
A maturing chest burster was still attached to the leader's blades, covered in deep red human blood, but very much dead. A tiny drop of acid ran off the creature's long tail and sizzled into the pavement in between the leader's feet.
Carlos clenched his jaw shut and stared at the leader as he pulled himself to his feet. The leader flicked his wrist downward and the slimy dead creature slid off the blades and fell on top of its former host's body.
The leader growled as he turned toward Carlos and cast him a glance that seemed to say 'I told you so'.
"Oh my God," Carlos murmured.
"You are all infected," Cassandra said warily as she looked around at the group of arrivals the warriors were clutching.
It was obvious, at least Casandra thought, that the remainder of the leader's group was waiting for his go ahead to dispose of the infected hosts and the sadistic little offspring inside them.
As had been the case so many times before the infected men and women began to sob, beg, plead, as they realized the ends of their lives were imminent. It seemed clear, though, that the aliens were trying to be as respectful as possible while still doing a necessary deed.
Only three of the newcomers were not drawing the attention of the aliens, which implied that none of them were impregnated. Cassandra didn't know how it was possible, but the alien warriors could see the developing fetuses inside the hosts, and knew exactly who had been impregnated and who was not.
"I'm sorry," Lewis said after a brief back and forth pleading.
Whether or not the alien leader understood what was being said, Cassandra could not be sure, but he definitely seemed to take the tone of the words Lewis spoke as a conclusion; permission even, to do what needed to be done.
Silenced by the sight, Cassandra, Carlos, and the rest shut their eyes and dropped their heads as the alien group made quick work of killing the rest of the hosts. Ten more bodies thudded to the ground after a quick crunching sound. The other three sighed heavily when the aliens turned their backs on the humans and started along the street.
The group continued to follow the warriors, explaining the situation to the new arrivals, who were still mortified by all that they had witnessed.
Though they were familiar with the aliens, and knew they had arrived some time ago, they had assumed the creatures were enemies and had taken with a few other survivors they had found. They had tried to kill the alien creatures, but the few that they were tracking disappeared.
"...and when we found them again, they were dead. Some must have survived and took the weapons with them. We didn't know that the others...that they...that they were infected. Oh, God." The woman finished explaining.
"It's alright, it's over now," Carlos comforted the pretty, but frightened woman softly.
The group continued on quietly. The aliens seemed uninjured and unimpressed with the human fire fight towards them from just a moment ago.
They had already turned their backs on the group and were striding quickly away from the scene, unconcerned with their fallen kin and unmournful for the loss of human life they had created.
They marched on without stopping, traveling through the rest of the day, into the night and only pausing briefly when the small group of human tailgaters stopped for a rest.
The air around their resting spot was still and heavy, thick and soured. A foul stench floated in the musky air and Cassandra knew what it was immediately. She had become accustomed to the odor. The scent was becoming second nature.
She wondered if the alien hunters were smelling out hives, following the horrible trail of rotting flesh and acidic secretions that grew the heaviest when they drew nearer to a hive.
The warriors were following the trail of blood, death, and misery, like a hunting dog hot on the scent of its quarry and they never steered wrong.
As she and the others tried to rest for a short while, Cassandra fought her heavy eyelids and kept her eyes on the alien group.
They had fanned out, creating a wide semi-circle along one side of the human group that rested crowded close to one another. Cassandra and many others around her had noticed that the alien hunters seemed to be all eyeing the same direction.
She panned her eyes along the wide formation, straining to see as best as she could against the dark, moonless night sky until her eyes fell upon the leader of the alien group once again.
He was at the center of the arcing formation and overlooking the valley that sat below the mountainside they had slowly begun to pass.
From the highway, Cassandra and the others could not see to the valley below, but from the mountain turf beyond the guardrail, the leader crouched low the ground, studying the sights below.
Curious, Lewis and three other men slowly crept forward.
Cassandra heard them whispering amongst each other, quietly wondering what the aliens were spying upon. She snuck behind the group and craned her neck to eye the leader a little more.
He dropped out of sight, sliding just over the drop off several dozen feet beyond the highway. He must not have gone far, Cassandra quietly thought, for the other aliens barely moved and usually where their leader went, the troops followed.
She pulled herself over the guardrail, glancing back at the remainder of the group, most of whom were now eyeing the straying people wildly and fearfully.
As Cassandra took several steps closer to the edge of the mountain, she thought the scent in the air had grown stronger and she suddenly felt her heart racing as though it was all new once again.
She came to the edge of the flat area and glanced down. Barely ten feet below her feet crouched the alien leader on a small jutting out portion of the sloping mountainside.
His eyes were locked onto the dark city in the valley beyond the cliff and he did not acknowledge the five humans standing just above his head. A strong clicking sound emanated from his helmeted face and a few of the other aliens had crept down the hillside to get a better view.
"What are they seeing?" Lewis whispered softly.
No one responded; they all simply stared off to the valley.
Cassandra decided that the aliens' vision must have been either much better than the humans' and they were watching attentively whatever it was they spied, or their vision was far worse, and they were straining their eyes just as much as the humans to see.
All Cassandra could see was the vaguest outline of a town. She could not define any buildings, nor could she see any roads or any hint of recognizable structures.
Given the distance the groups were at, and the dark late night sky that was void of stars and the moon, Cassandra wondered how anyone could see anything.
Not even the glow of the still hovering alien spacecrafts were enough to cast light on what the alien hunters carefully and quietly watched.
As each one began to crouch to a squatting position, Cassandra thought they looked like a cat ready to pounce on a mouse it was stalking.
Her heart throbbed in between her own ears and she held her breath, awaiting any hint of movement from anyone or anything. The tension in the moment lasted an eternity and neither man, woman, nor alien moved or made a sound.
Even the rolling clicking from the leader ceased and the air was threateningly still and lifeless. Cassandra strained through the quietness to hear the slightest hint of anything that could be moving in the trees along the mountain, down to the valley, and in the city below.
The void was overwhelming.
Suddenly, Cassandra did hear movement. It was slow, faint, and approaching, and she was almost grateful for the break in the silence.
She could tell that the noise was the delicate rustling of the ground from behind her caused by gently creeping footsteps as another curious person eased near to the eyeing group. The approaching person spoke softly, trying to control the level of his voice and the tension in his words.
"What are you staring at?" He whispered slowly.
No one responded and without another word the man clicked on a small, dulling flashlight. The tiny bulb illuminated very little and only created a fuzzy yellow haze that reached barely two dozen feet beyond where they were standing.
The illuminated rays glided past the leader's head and the beads in his gray dread locks twinkled gold in the light. He shuffled sideways cautiously, seemingly annoyed at the ray of light and as Cassandra's eyes followed the dying beam she understood why.
The light glistened in to the woods, highlighting the beginning outline of a vast army that rested silently awaiting their moment to attack. The creatures never made a sound, never a hiss, nor a deep breath.
They did not snap a twig nor rustle a leaf, nor did they charge forth with uncontrolled savagery. Their impossibly hard black bodies provided unequaled camouflage against the night that shrouded them, as the creatures awaited the perfect moment to attack.
Cassandra only saw the army for an instant in that flicker. Her heart stopped and threw itself into her throat and she was certain that just as the aliens were hunting the bugs, the massive black serpents were hunting their killers right back.
As quickly as the flashlight clicked on, so lasted the moment where the two species faced off with each other. They had crept up to one another in sheer silence and the unending crowd of bugs squared off with their alien foes and human adversaries.
The tension ignited as quickly as the click of the button on the flashlight.
Not only did the instant flicker of dull light illuminate the serpent sea crouching on the hillside, it also triggered the warrior hunters into action.
With a mighty roar from the alien fighters and a savage shriek from the monstrous bugs, the two armies clashed together in the shadows of the dying flashlight bulb.
So soon were the alien troops so deeply surrounded by their savage enemies, they had disappeared into the sea of the black creatures.
Although many slain bug hides were quickly getting tossed to the ground in all directions, cast off the tips of the warrior's bladed spears while other hunters shot the animals with their shoulder and hand guns, it did not take long at all before the bright green blood of the alien fighters began to make the black ground glow in the moonlight.
Cassandra and the others stood for a stunned moment with their jaws gaping.
It took several seconds for the sight to absorb into her mind, but as Lewis thrust her sideways with such force to avoid an acidic corpse that was flying her direction that her shoulder collided brutally with a nearby tree, she pulled herself out of her surrealistic terrified wonder and whirled around, weapon raised, but barely aimed, and opened fire.
As she opened fire, she did not even notice that the rest of the group around her had done the same.
The flashing sparks from the array of weaponry utilized by both man and alien ignited the battlefield in a constant flickering series, but the lights and noises of the various weaponry were soon blocked out.
Cassandra could only focus on her own thumping heart beating wildly and fearsomely in her chest. She could not see anything in front of her eyes, not even when the lights flickered. Her mind had stopped thinking and had simply begun to react.
Despite her shaking hands, she fired her rifle until it was dry, immediately reloaded and fired again without focusing, thinking, or aiming. Her arms felt weak, her breath soon became unbearably heavy and her body was shivering.
The fear she felt was overwhelmed with an array of emotions she was sure she had never felt before.
A sharp howl rang through the air and for a brief moment Cassandra was able to focus on something outside of her pounding head.
Her eyes cast to one side and she saw a forceful stream of bright green blood spurt across several bug drones. The alien hunter in front of the drones had collapsed backwards with a mighty roar and a torn apart body.
Taken slightly aback by the sight of the great warrior faltering, one man not far from the alien's helmeted head, stopped firing a blink of an eye too long and three of the monstrous beasts pounced on him like mighty jungle cats tackling their prey.
As two more men rushed over to try to help their friend, another small cluster of bug drones savaged the would-be rescuers.
Cassandra's attention was drawn away from the attacking swarm as she began to watch person after person fall victim to the demonic creatures.
The already green tinted ground and corpses that littered it had now begun to turn deep mahogany from the seeping human blood that melded with the fallen alien's. The bug army had found their hole and they were quickly penetrating through the futile resistance.
Cassandra's eyes lifted barely from the cadavers that were quickly lining the ground and out of the corner of her vision she noticed the rest of the alien warriors still working their way through the unending sea of drones that surrounded them.
The leader of the alien group wielded his massive double bladed staff like a well trained professional, but even in the fleeting second that she saw him, Cassandra still spotted the gash in his left arm that was streaming blood to the ground.
For a moment, the night seemed to be happening in slow motion.
There was a strange lull in the air, a brief second that lasted for a millennia within itself. Cassandra's eyes took advantage of the time and scanned over the group, watching in horror as more humans fell victim to the drones that swarmed them while others ran away down the road.
Her eyes settled onto another warrior alien. She saw him swing his blade around, slashing at the drones around him with a deep ferocity. But even all of his might, strength, and finely honed weapons were no match for the growing numbers.
Not far from the spot where his companion had fallen, the second warrior dropped to the ground. Still fighting as he hit his knees, the alien's body was soon blacked out, completely surrounded by the demonic drones.
She felt nauseous, weak, ready to drop to her knees and await the future she suddenly realized was quickly approaching. She slowly squeezed her eyes shut and felt her grip weaken on the rifle in her hands.
She opened her eyes again as she heard a sinister hiss from not far behind her head. Her eyes set upon the leader of the alien group. He had turned in her direction, eyes cast just to the back of Cassandra.
Lewis shouted loudly with a ragged breathing and the sound of his yell rivaled the pitch of the hissing just behind her skull. Snapped back into the fighting, Cassandra spun around quickly, lowering her body to a crouch and raising her weapon.
She pulled the trigger before she could barely focus on the beast that was there. The creature hissed angrily as the powerful bullets impacted through its skull and it dropped to the ground. Cassandra threw herself backwards, narrowly avoiding the spray of acid that resulted from the kill.
With a deep sigh and a quick, shocked glance back to the leader of the aliens who was immediately preoccupied with killing drones, she pulled herself back to her feet and opened fire once more. Her rifle emptied and she fumbled with her ammo pack to pull two more clips from the bag still tied to her waist.
She snapped one into her rifle and gripped the other one between her teeth, readying it for nearly immediate use. Cassandra began to break free from the emotional currents that raged inside her, and though her heart still banged painfully in her chest, she fired at the sea of drone creatures that still swarmed like a robot programmed to do only one thing.
She stood her ground and thought about nothing other than keeping bullets in her weapon.
As the sea of drones pressed, the remaining human group, and the rest of the alien warriors began to pull together, creating a solid fence line against the horde.
The scent of gun powder, charred acidic bodies, and alien blood rushed into her nostrils with every forced breath. The overwhelming odor made her dizzy and light headed.
Wide eyed, sweaty, and bloody, the human survivors stared at one another and to the ten alien hunters around them.
It seemed for a quick moment that each being was evaluating themselves and the one next to them for their continued battle readiness. Cassandra looked about at the two intertwined groups stunned that they had all made it that far through the battle.
None had managed to fight their way through the horde unscathed, though. It was only now that Cassandra had even realized her own thigh and arm were bleeding from deep gashes.
She certainly did not remember getting the injuries inflicted upon her, but as her adrenaline levels plateaued just enough, she began to feel the intense pain from the wounds.
She glanced at her bleeding leg and even under the night sky, she could tell that her pants had been clawed open and her leg along with it. The injury on her arm was less severe but equally as painful and as she quickly glanced at it, she was sure she had been grazed by a bullet.
The rest of the group around her had similar injuries. Human and alien alike, each had clawed marks through various parts of their bodies, or chunks of skin and muscle torn away courtesy of the metallic tooth lined snapping jaws of their enemy.
Suddenly the leader called out loudly to his warriors. Cassandra glanced down the hill and realized yet more of the terrible creatures were writhing their way up to the severely outnumbered and slowly wearying group of fighters.
She glanced back to the roadway, over the guardrail and far down the empty stretch of cold pavement where the other half of the human survivors stood and waiting in shock, awe, and fear, clearly torn between running away and waiting for their friends to escape the battle.
The alien warriors, with one quick gesture of the leader's hand, that the humans promptly followed, pulled back quickly.
The leader called for a retreat. But he stood his ground while the others began to vacate the area. Lewis grabbed at her shoulder to pull her hot on the heels of the alien warriors to safety, but Cassandra stuck to her spot and watched the leader warily, holding her breath.
He seemed, in those few short seconds, completely unconcerned that the horde was nearly on him.
"What is he doing?" She whispered with a gasp.
"Who cares, let's go!" Lewis called sharply and yanked on her again.
Cassandra remained glued to her spot, eyes focused on the alien leader.
She had seen him, over the last few weeks, fight viciously and aggressively and almost endlessly against the hordes of bugs and into entire hives and against queens. He was skilled, experienced, and an utterly dangerous opponent for the deadly creatures.
She had watched him leap onto the back of an alien queen twice and run his staff through her to bring her down, something that none of the others in his group seemed terribly willing to attempt.
There was no question why he was the leader. She could not imagine why he stopped his fight, told his troops to retreat, and stood grounded to the spot before her eyes.
His injuries did not seem that severe, she quickly determined. He was bleeding from a gash in his arm and along his abdomen, but he still stood strong, and he could obviously walk and move.
Cassandra eyed him as just a few seconds ticked by. Had he given up? She wondered if he was standing as a decoy to help give his group a little extra time to get away to safety.
Lewis screamed to her and yanked on her shoulder one more time just as the leader detached a panel off his arm band. In the fraction of a second before he tossed it into the approaching horde and spun on his heels, Cassandra could see lights flickering and disappearing on the device.
The leader howled loudly as he spun, his dredlock hair whipping wildly in his wake. She was quite certain he was staring right at her, yelling something – get away, perhaps.
"That's a bomb! Move!" Lewis concluded quickly by the haste of the escape efforts of the aliens.
It all happened so quickly, Cassandra wasn't quite sure what had really transpired. Seconds passed between the leader's howling call for retreat and her own running away with Lewis, inches away from the alien leader.
The explosion from the valley below boomed up with such ferocity the shock wave rocked the ground and caused a massive implosion of the hillside.
Both groups ran at top speeds away from the blast, no longer avoiding the drones themselves, but now instead, trying to avoid flames, shrapnel, and implosions. Once they reached a safe enough distance, the groups both pulled to a halt in unison and exasperated humans crumbled over to catch their breath.
Cassandra dropped to the pavement, shaking with fear, adrenaline, and shock. She glanced about and spied the leader casually striding towards his troops, no worse for wear apparently. She sighed deeply and tried to slow her breath.
The group around her gasped and cried and prayed and groaned and sighed. It was almost a sigh of relief but not quite.
The tension was still thicker than the blood that was clotting on the ground all around them and as the remaining humans looked to the alien warriors that were scanning the town just at the beyond the exit ramp, they knew the battle was just beginning.
Exhausted, injured, and mostly low on ammunition and energy, Cassandra and the others followed the obviously equally as weary alien hunters off the exit ramp and onto the city streets below.
Trying to control their breathing without making too much noise, the group of shaky humans stalked as silently as the aliens they followed, unwaveringly forward into the hive entrance that had been constructed between two buildings, and draped across the street.
The massive canopy above their heads, though void of any of its drone keepers, seemed to be pulsating with a grotesque life unto itself.
The thick walls of the hive completely covered the buildings that they were built upon and the spun roof was lined with satanic secretions that looked similar to a spine and ribs.
Cassandra felt like she was walking into the skeleton of a massive creature that should never have been allowed to exist. The grayish secretions were so thick the moon above could not penetrate, and as Cassandra stalked so deep into the hive that she could barely see, she was certain she had crossed the threshold into an alien world where Earth once stood.
They were walking into a cave that cut its way straight to hell and was lined with the secretions of the devil itself. There was no earthly resemblance inside the hive to anything familiar other than death and horror.
She stopped and took a deep, shaky breath. She felt someone behind her slam into her, caught unprepared by her sudden halt and obviously unable to see as well.
Cassandra hesitantly reached to her side and touched the slimy wall for a brace. She was certain that she had been traveling downhill, but without a light to guide by, she could not even be sure of that.
Reluctantly, the blinded group that surrounded Cassandra began to whisper softly to one another. Like bats in a cave, they used their voices to find one another, and received a sharp growl from the alien group in front of them for their effort.
Lewis found Cassandra and placed his hand on her shoulder. He circled around her and took the lead. Cassandra gripped the back of his shirt so hard her fingers hurt. Carlos placed his hand on Cassandra's shoulder and someone behind him had done the same.
Relying on the person in front for some support and guidance, the small human group created a chain and moved forward one step at a time in the undefinable black void.
Cassandra wondered how it was that the warriors could even see inside such a tomb. If it was not for the very occasional rustling of a foot along the ground, Cassandra would not have even known that the aliens were still there in the black distance in front of her.
They stalked like hunters, quietly, without a hint of fear or emotion. Even the glowing bright blood they leaked had blackened itself and did not give away their position.
Cassandra fumbled with one hand along the wall while the other clenched Lewis's shirt. Time after time someone would step on another's heel and cause a chain reaction of tripping and stumbling.
Given a different time and place the chain of people tripping over each other would have been comical, but each time the group was thrown off balance, they could not recoup without some noise, which created the threat of giving away their position.
At least one of the aliens in the front of the group would offer a quick growl every time the blind Congo line fell loose.
At one point the group walked as straight as they could be sure they were going and Lewis slammed harshly into a wall. Cassandra thumped into his head with her chin and the rest of the group walked into the back of the person in front of themselves.
The aliens had followed the hive through a turn to the right, which none of the humans could possibly see.
When one alien clicked and the group was able to follow the sound, Cassandra was then certain that the aliens had impeccable night vision. While the drones seemed to truly be the most perfect killers, the warrior aliens were equally matched as the perfect hunters for the nightmarish monsters.
They navigated the lightless labyrinth with ease, mostly noiseless, and seemingly completely fearless.
Cassandra had lost all sense of time and reality. She could very well have been wandering the dark corridor that she could not see for days and not have known the difference.
The stale air that met her nostrils and the black void the shrouded her was so far from all that was familiar and real, Cassandra could almost feel herself going mad in the darkness.
Fear was taking control once more and her heart raced to meet it. Her eyes began to play tricks on her.
Where people trapped for waterless days in some distant desert might suddenly be sure they could see a vast sparkling clear blue pool just ahead and rush to it licking their lips, Cassandra was certain she could see a glimmering, toothy mouth snap in her direction, hear the awful hiss of the creators of that nightmare, and she could feel her finger tickle the trigger of her weapon each time.
She jumped slightly, trying not to relinquish her grip on Lewis's shoulder, but wanting to avoid the drone she was certain was snapping at her from the wall she groped with her other hand.
Lewis stopped momentarily to silently reassure her. His hand tapped hers and he squeezed his fingers over her palm supportively.
Another hiss echoed in her ears, but this one, she quickly decided, she did not imagine. Others had heard it too. Lewis stopped in his tracks and someone at the rear of the group yelled out in fear and opened fire.
The dark tunnel came to life once more in the fiery haze of the semi-automatic weapon.
Filled with fear, and probably the same visions Cassandra was having, someone in the back of the group shot the walls around him until others wrestled him to the ground howling for him to cease fire.
There were drones in the hive, and if they were not already aware of the invaders' presence, the gunfire and outcries certainly alerted the satanic monsters.
Lewis loosened his grip on her and darted to the back of the group to help quell the situation. Cassandra pressed her back to the wall and quietly waited for the group to settle. She concentrated on keeping her breathing under control, focusing her mind solely on not making any more noise than she had to.
She felt something brush up against her and she shrieked, calling for Lewis. Lewis called to her from somewhere at the end of the group and she reassured him.
Something had brushed against her in the darkness, but it was not one of the nightmarish acid blood creatures. She tried to see through the darkness.
Unable, she pawed for the wall and pointed herself in the direction she had been walking, fanning her other hand in front of her. With a deep breath she took a solid step forward and her hand grasped on to something just ahead.
She groped at the strange thing she could not see and suddenly heard a ticking growl. Her eyes widened and she took a rugged breath as she realized she was grabbing at the back of one of the alien hunters.
The warrior stepped forward and as she felt him move out from her reach, she lunged forward to grab him again. Unable to see, she tripped over the back of the alien's heels as she darted towards him.
She fell forward with a quick groan and grabbed at the hunter's back until she had a solid hold on his belt. The warrior growled once more but stepped forward a little softer the next time, allowing her to keep her pace with him as they walked.
Once again the trail was formed and the group quietly stalked through the dark corridor.
Lewis still fought as quietly as possible with the man at the back of the line.
Cassandra could hear Lewis from time to time, but mostly she heard the hysterical whispering voice of someone whose mind had been lost in the darkness. She sympathized with him, knowing exactly how he felt, but she swallowed and pressed forward along with the alien that she clutched on to, her rifle swinging at her hips.
They walked through the endless dark tunnels blindly following their alien leaders. Cassandra shook from the cold air that seeped into her skin and the fear that was welling up inside her along with the anxiety over wondering when the alien she clutched was going to grow tired of her hand pulling on his belt and backhand her to the ground.
She took a deep breath and gently placed one foot in front of the other, trying to feel her way over the rutted ground through the tip of her boots. Every so often, she casually glanced back to the end of the group where Lewis was still trying to control the outbursts of the man at the end of the row.
Though she could not see him, she could follow the hushed whisper of Lewis' voice to pick his general location at all times.
Hisses rang out through the lightless void, causing more of a panic with each step. Cassandra tried to keep her fears to a minimum, but she was unable to stay totally silent each time a bug drone voice shot through the air.
Suddenly, the deep foreboding hiss of the gigantic queen, the mother of the hive, the layer of the eggs, and the maker of hell, echoed off the chamber walls.
Even the alien guides seemed rattled by the queen's taunting call. The warrior Cassandra grasped tightly to stopped and she could feel him shuffle about. She was not sure what he was doing, but she thought he was switching weapons.
Suddenly he crouched down with such unexpectedness Cassandra's grip was torn loose. Her heart skipped a beat. She had lost her set of eyes in the undefinable black maze, and she did not know if they were under attack or if her guide had fallen.
She stretched her hand down and forward and searched for the alien that had disappeared before her. Not knowing that she had stopped, Carlos slammed into her back and pushed her slightly forward as the others behind him did the same like a chain of dominos.
Cassandra hunched forward and her outstretched arm slammed into the back of the alien she searched for. She took a deep breath and held it for a moment as she felt the alien's back. Her hand patted his muscular torso and moved gently up into his smooth ropy locks of hair.
She frowned, trying to determine if the alien was just stopped or had died silently. He slid forward and she tugged on his hair as he moved away from her grasp once more with an annoyed growl.
Once more Cassandra panned quickly into the darkness in front of her.
This time her hand collided with a solid wall at the level of her chin. She felt around and realized that the opening of their ever- narrowing walkway had been reduced to half. She crouched down just behind the alien in front of her and followed them through the pitch black tunnel.
She whispered softly to Carlos and he sent the message down the chain. Without any trouble, each tailgater was able to navigate into the low passageway quietly. Cassandra tried to stretch upwards, testing the height of the ceiling above her and found that she could not stand completely straight.
The grittily spun rooftop could not be more than five feet high. The aliens in front of her, she thought, must have been crawling, for they were much taller than any human.
The walls around her began to narrow as she crept hunched over through the dark passageway. She could feel her heart and her breathing speed up as claustrophobia set in.
The space around her became so narrow that she could not imagine how the giant hunters, with their somewhat bulky armor, could even still be fitting through.
The rifle that was slung over her shoulder streaked against the walls with a spine tingling scratching noise until she pressed it firmly against her own body to silence it. Only the sounds of her own heart and desperate breathing filled her ears.
No one else whispered or even breathed too loudly. Even the frightened man Lewis had been trying to hush fell silent through the terrifying passage.
Suddenly, Cassandra's head was able to stretch completely up. She still could not see, but she knew she was out of the narrow pass. The walls around her regressed and she stood erect.
She instantly pulled her weapon back to a useful position, and despite her blind eyes, she looked around as if she might see something that could give the blankness some depth. For a brief moment, she sensed that nothing, not man nor beast, nor alien hunter was moving.
She found herself filling with anxiety and adrenaline as she wondered what her night-vision blessed guide was staring silently and motionlessly towards.
When the shrieks rang out, she no longer had to wonder. Unable to see, a panicked firefight quickly broke out amongst the human ranks.
Cassandra tried her best to focus, to hear a vile squeal from a bug and aim in that direction, but she feared that the others around her were not doing the same.
Suddenly she realized that she was not only at risk of being shredded by the drones whose home she had invaded, but she might well also end up riddled with bullets from the unfocused spray of the group around her.
As the aliens in their company opened fire, the lighted blasts from their bright blue bolt casters lit the room for microseconds, but it was just barely enough to allow her to comprehend her surroundings.
She could hear the squeals of the drones that had been struck down, and the angry shrieks of the next drone pouncing its attack.
Her ears were filling with the deafening rings of the weapons in the enclosed area and the blood thirsty growls of the alien warriors. In the flashes of lights she was able to see what was actually going on around her.
She realized in the first few simultaneous flickers that she was in a fairly large dome shaped area, completely surrounded on all sides by the bugs that had spun the walls around her. The creature's silvery, saliva covered teeth glistened as they snapped at their foes in the blue flicker of alien fire.
Slowly, the aliens began to fall towards the far end of the curving room. Those of the human group that had noticed had begun to follow suit.
In the momentary blasts of light, Cassandra, Lewis, and Carlos found each other and formed a narrow line as each tried to help the next towards the alien group and towards an opening in the wall beyond them. Cassandra did her best to maintain a controlled fire, but as her face and body was splattered with bright green blood of an injured warrior just in front of her, she shrieked and squeezed her eyes and the trigger.
Before she could get her reflexes back under control, the bullets from her rifle sprayed around in all directions.
As the warrior that had already been sliced into by the drones howled once more, she saw a fresh spurt of blood emerge from his leg and knew she had shot him as well.
"Oh shit!" Cassandra squealed.
The alien did not seem to notice or care or pay it any mind as he readily took on two bug drones that charged him. Cassandra tried not to focus on what just transpired, and instead, concentrated her efforts on heading spryly towards the exit where the rest of the alien group was now disappearing into.
The trio shot off shouting for any others that could to follow and as Cassandra turned back, she noticed that the severely injured warrior was limping his way towards the gaping hole in the wall as well, still firing his bright blue caster at the drones that swarmed him as he made his exit.
On the other side of the opening, Cassandra's attention was instantly drawn to a very slight ray of moonbeam that was peeking through a small spot just ahead in the distance. The light was not enough to illuminate the room they had just walked into, but it did seem to shine like a beacon, like a bright red neon EXIT sign.
With a joyful glee, several people around her shot over towards the light like excited children. They fumbled forward, still unable to see in the dark chamber, and the first person in the group shouted out in pain as he toppled over a drop off and fell several feet, cracking his leg on something solid.
Cautiously groping the area around them, but trying to hurry to help their friend, several other people pawed their way to the edge of the terrain and felt the drop off. Cassandra kept a hand on Lewis's shoulder as he crouched down and pawed the ground.
She eyed the gray blue ray of moonbeam and listened to the group around her discuss what they could feel.
Lewis suddenly thumped himself over the side and Cassandra squealed in fright.
"It's Ok, it's only three feet or so down." He reassured her and the wary shouting group before him.
In the darkness, the group obeyed Lewis's direction and they carefully lowered themselves into the recess. As some helped the fallen man to his feet, Lewis, Carlos and Cassandra glanced to the moon beam and tried to eye the darkness around them.
Their eyes were beginning to adjust to the new shade of light in the room, and Cassandra noticed the silhouette of the last, bloody and still limping, alien warrior disappear into yet another opening.
"We're in a god damned train tunnel." Lewis said suddenly.
As the others looked around, they too began to see the familiarity of the place. The light was coming from an almost totally closed hole at the top of the stairs that would lead up to the street.
The group was standing atop the tracks and the drop off was the edge of the waiting platform. It was all so vague, in the darkness and covered in the drone's secretions that there was almost no earthly resemblance, but the group was still certain they knew the structure they were in.
Suddenly howls and weapon fire rang out from somewhere down the tunnel. The aliens had traveled through a hole in the drone-created wall, and were now obviously engaged in battle on the other side.
Savage shrieks filled the chambers, shrieks only possible from a queen. Cassandra's eyes grew wide and her heart skipped a beat as she looked towards Lewis in the silhouetted light.
All eyes were cast towards the sounds of the battle and each person seemed to be holding their breath, awaiting a decision. Lewis turned to the group behind him.
He glanced at the man with the broken leg, Carlos and another supporting him and two more staring in wide eyed fright between the battle and the light. He looked back to Cassandra, who was amidst five more were all staring towards the battle, now completely uninterested in the lighted exit.
Lewis swallowed and glanced towards the howl of the alien warriors once more. He turned back to the group behind him.
"Make us an exit!" He said, quickly scaling back up to the waiting platform.
He turned and glanced back to the group. There was no argument, nor any need to question their actions or motivations.
Those too injured or too fearful parted from the rest and pulled themselves up to the platform on the other side of the tracks, slowly climbing the resin covered stair well towards the light at the end of the tunnel. Lewis, Cassandra, and five others did not look back to them.
They turned towards the sounds of the battle and darted forward, weapons ready, hearts racing, prepared to either end the battle or die trying.