Vegas: Resistance6
"Then imitate the action of the tiger;"
John crouches in the scrub. He motions with his hand and the marines at his back do the same. The sun is hot, brutal as it sears his back and neck but he ignores it. His gaze is locked on the trio walking weakly along the hills. They are almost lost in the shadows but John uses his binoculars and zooms in on them.
He zooms in on the Wraith.
More stragglers that have come out of hiding at last, from God knows where in the desert. They could have been shot on sight, killed from the safety of a helicopter but instead the government wants these alive. They are running out of live specimens and there are still so many tests to be run, still so many questions to be answered.
John rankles under the orders but he has no choice. He is still a colonel in the USAF and must obey, no matter how much he would prefer just killing the damn things. He scowls, rubs his scruffy jaw. "On my mark. Set to stun," he quietly orders into his earpiece. Now that they are using the Wraith's own weapons they are easier to catch and to subdue.
But the aliens are still dangerous and unpredictable.
"Targets acquired. Mark."
The men rise as one and charge forward, shouting to confuse the Wraith who jump and scatter, then snarl and rush to attack. Lasers fill the air, the blue bolts repeatedly hitting the alien creatures. One goes down. Two are still attacking and they move with blinding speed. John realizes they must have recently fed and subsequently will be more difficult to put down.
A man screams as he is attacked, but more energy bolts finally subdue the Wraith. It crashes to the hot desert sands, writhing in pain before it loses consciousness.
The third one veers and runs to escape. It winds through the scrub and eludes the lasers chasing after it.
"Shit." John sighs. "Bag and tag 'em, get 'em delivered! Delta, with me!" He gestures and the crack squad divide. Men move to each side of him to flank as John races after the lone Wraith. He swings the Wraith stunner, wishing it was a P90 instead.
A man is thrown sideways, neck broken. The laser fire is having little effect and John swears, decides and tosses the Wraith stunner aside. He pulls his trusty 9mm and swerves, reaching the Wraith as it whirls and rushes him to attack. John fires his weapon point blank, unloading an entire clip into the Wraith with savage intensity. The Wraith is jolted by each bullet as it advances, advances, reaching John. Its long nails just brush his chest before it suddenly falls to the ground, riddled with bullets. A few lasers ping off it as the men join him but the Wraith is dead. Just to be sure John reloads and empties another clip into its head and heart.
"Uh, sir. Sir? Weren't our orders to take them alive?" a nervous marine asks.
"Yeah? Well, I've rescinded them, at least on this one. Give me your knife, kid. I want to be sure and finish the job." John holds out his hand expectantly.
"Sir? Colonel Sheppard, our, our orders were to, to take them alive."
John's gaze is like ice. He is sick of following orders. He is sick of being in charge of newbies who have no idea how close they all came to losing the planet. He is tired of all the politics and backstabbing that go along with it in this brave new world. "And my orders are to give me your goddamn knife."
The nervous young man hands over his knife, and watches in shock as John kneels and begins to sever the head from the body.
It's just another day defending the planet from hostile aliens.
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Moira shakes her head, shoves the microscope aside. "I told you. I told you but you wouldn't listen!" she flares, turns to see Carson staring into another microscope.
Carson sighs and meets her gaze. Resigned. "Aye, you did, love. But it was the only way to defeat the Wraith. The only way." He looks back at the cells on the slide. Enlarged they appear like hexagonal shapes swimming in reddish fluid. Blood cells being attacked, being altered by an enemy within that so far has been able to resist the cell's natural defenses.
"I told you," she repeats, but her tone is one of weary acceptance. "The enzyme is like a virus in that it can mutate and evolve over time, much like your bio-toxin. Nature will find a way to survive, even in the harshest of elements. The enzyme evolved to find a new host, and now that it has entered the food chain God knows what will happen years if not decades from now."
"There was no other way," Carson argues. "So far the enzyme has proven to be harmless. The bio-toxin remnants are inert, have been for years. The area of contagion has been sealed and sterilized. We are working now on a way to combat whatever comes our way."
"And what if it mutates again? What if it finds a way to defeat our immune systems? I don't care what you say, Carson, you can't justify what you did. What we did." She feels tears but blinks them aside. "And the Wraith will evolve too, those that are left. John is out there now risking his life again and he doesn't even know exactly what he's up against!"
"I'm sure he does, love. Look, Moira, we did terrible things, but we had no choice. It was either us or them, and I for one wanted to make sure it was us."
"But there had to be another way!"
"There wasn't!"
"I disagree. But I guess it doesn't matter now. You forgot. You all forgot one thing. One vital thing. The most important thing. The Wraith are half human."
She turns to a small glass incubator where a premature baby is attached to tubes and wires. Monitors are keeping record of every breath, of every heartbeat. It is an ordinary baby in all respects and appearance, except for one thing. One telling difference.
On one of its little hands there is a crude mutation.
There is primitive sucker on one tiny palm.
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The three children sit in their home, staring at the computer screen where two windows are open. Two images are set side by side. Two maps of the United States. One is map before the invasion. The other is a map after the invasion. The children study the differences, making notes lest there be a test later as their teacher drones on and on about the new United States of America.
The nation is now more oval-shaped, having lost miles of coastline and land to the encroaching sea that is still rising, but at a slower rate now. Washington and Oregon are smaller but mostly intact, but California is all but gone, subsumed by violent earthquakes and drowned by tsunamis. Nevada and Arizona will have beachfront property in a few more years.
Between the boundaries of Arizona and Utah is a great depression, a huge void that is known as the Great Crater. It is where half of an enormous Hive ship crashed years ago in the last days of the war. The impact was tremendous, like a small asteroid hitting the Earth and the miles of desert surrounding the zone are still lifeless, sterilized areas where radiation lingers.
As does the remaining doses of the bio-toxin and the enzyme, for the ship was a partially living thing and organic.
The East has suffered more catastrophic losses since the war. The entire Eastern seaboard is gone, obliterated by the Wraith attacks and by the subsequent environmental damage. The subduction zone is shifting to the Atlantic as the continents are violently shoved together by the movement of the tectonic plates. The Earth is listing slightly on its axis and this singular effect has changed everything about the planet.
Earthquakes and tsunamis have destroyed many of the great cities, including the former capital of Washington, D.C. Now the government is safely ensconced in Denver, Colorado, at a higher altitude as the planet evolves. Slowly the Atlantic Ocean eats away at what is left of the Eastern seaboard, which now is comprised of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky and Georgia.
Johnny Sheppard dutifully writes down the changes in his notebook, tongue sticking out of his mouth as he tries to comprehend what it all means. He knows his mommy can explain it all better than the teacher can, so he will wait until he can ask her. He carefully writes the word Pangaea on the next page although the teacher has not said it. But he knows the word is what the world's one landmass will go by when it forms in his lifetime.
Seamus Sheppard scribbles, not really taking notes. He likes the colors on the maps and wonders about the lost states and their names. He wants to ask his daddy about them and if he ever had flown over them in the past before the war. He starts to draw a plane, a fighter jet like his daddy flies and he adds his favorite number 4 to the plane's decoration.
Emily Sheppard is too young to understand and she sits with her brothers, happily coloring outside the lines of her coloring book. She likes the green crayon the best.
Despite the evolution of the planet school days still go on.