Hunt for the Garde Part 3

Just how we want them.

The front door is large and thick hardwood. It's a narrow entryway for my squad, so I motion to my left, and they follow me around the side of the house, where floor-to-ceiling sliding gla.s.s doors look in on a large room. There's a woman standing inside. She's lighting tall candles in some sort of centerpiece on a side table. Her eyebrows are knit together, forming deep grooves as she moves from one wick to the next.

She sees us a moment before one of my troops throws a huge cement planter through the gla.s.s door, shattering it. The woman barely gets a chance to scream before our blasters open fire. She falls quickly, knocking the long candles over as she goes down. They ignite a piece of cloth laid across the table, lighting up the room with warm flames.

A small smile spreads across my lips.

"Find him," I grunt, and my men move.

The house is too big, with too many places to hide. Fortunately, most of the people inside come rushing to us, trying to figure out what broke the gla.s.s. Why the woman screamed. There are more humans than I'd antic.i.p.ated. Maybe friends or family of the owners hiding out in the big house-evacuees from the city who figured they could lay low for a while farther away from the warships. They go down just as easily as the first woman did, most too shocked to react to the sight of our faces. Our weapons. I wonder if their brains even process what's happening before they fall silent.

The humans are like the Loric in some ways. Anatomically, for instance. Their bodies don't disintegrate and disappear, becoming one with the universe. With Beloved Leader. Instead, they lie there. Dead. Bleeding. A reminder to everyone who sees them that they were unable to survive. They rot if left in the open, at a far slower pace than our trueborn-the best parts of our leaders disappear just like the vatborn do. A human's end is disgraceful. There's no honor in a death like that.

The acrid scent of blaster fire fills the air, mixing with the smoke rising from the flames, which continue to spread across the table. I inhale deeply. For the first time in a long while, I feel satisfied. I feel like I'm doing what I was born to do.

The boy we're after makes a brief appearance before turning tail and fleeing. Running up a set of stairs. Coward. We chase after him, leaping over bodies. Our boots stomping on cold, shiny tile floors in the home's entryway. Before we get to the first steps, a shot rings out. A human holding a double-barreled shotgun starts to reload. One of my men is down. It's his own fault-it was his duty to be watching our left flank. He's not dead, but injured. His left arm is gone, along with his blaster. Fortunately, he still has a dagger. He draws it from his belt and leaps. His shouts are pure rage as he lands on the human, taking him down. The man's head hits the tile floor with a crack. That alone probably killed him. But just in case it didn't, there's the blade. Blood pools on the floor. I leave my trooper to his work and head upstairs with the other three squad members.

We find our target in a bedroom, hiding under a desk. I drag him out and lift him in the air with one hand, holding up the electronic tablet next to his head with the other. It's him.

"Stop, please," he says, beginning to beg. "I'll do anything. We've got money. Is that what you want? If you let me go to my parents' room, there's a-"

I jab a syringe into his arm. He goes limp. I let his body hit the floor and motion to one of my men, who picks up the boy and throws him over his shoulder.

"Move out," I say.

Downstairs, my one-armed soldier stands over a mangled mess that was once a body. He appears to have used the hot barrel of his blaster to cauterize the stump where his arm used to be. Human blood drips from his uniform.

"Piece of s.h.i.t," he says, kicking the lifeless corpse. "That was my good hand."

We leave the way we came, stepping over the fallen. The flames from the overturned candles have spread to the carpet but are threatening to die out. I spot a large cabinet full of bottles nearby. Alcohol. I pull the whole thing down. Gla.s.s shatters. The alcohol spreads across the floor. As we step through the s.p.a.ce where the sliding door had been, the liquid ignites behind us with a satisfying whoosh.

Technically, the fire will make it harder for anyone to determine what really happened here. But honestly, that wasn't what I had in mind when I pulled down the cabinet. I just wanted to watch the place burn from the sky once we made it back to the Skimmer. To see the night lit up in flames.

And just as I expected, the sight of it as we shoot into the sky is glorious.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

WE DROP OFF THE SEDATED CAPTIVE AT THE warship. Our injured man is replaced with a new soldier. He curses under his breath, insisting he can still fight, but I need everyone on my team operating at one hundred percent. Then we head for our next targets. Two more teenagers, this time in Wisconsin, where we don't have any warships located.

Our first stop is outside of Milwaukee. A house, much smaller than the one we'd found in Chicago. It wouldn't take but a few minutes for this one to burn to the ground. It's the middle of the night when we arrive, setting the Skimmer down in the street once again. The neighborhood is quiet. The front door is unlocked. We find one adult inside. He's asleep. Never hears us coming. The subject does, though. He cowers in the corner of his bedroom, tears streaming down his face as he shouts that it was all a joke. He was "pranking" his friends. And he thought it would be "cool" if aliens showed up so he could meet them.

At least he gets his wish.

The only time he shows any sort of bravery is when I reach out to grab him. He swings a lamp at me, breaking it against my chest. I am unfazed. He tries to bolt past me but only gets a few steps away before the b.u.t.t of my blaster slams into the back of his head, causing him to crumple like a puppet whose strings have been snipped. I motion to one of my subordinates, and the target is sedated and loaded up.

The whole encounter takes five minutes tops. We are precise and merciless in our movements.

It's a short flight to our final target of the night. This one in Madison. I fly the Skimmer myself, enjoying the feeling of the controls in my hands. My men are silent in their seats behind me for the most part. Eventually, the new squad member speaks up.

"What happened to Grde?"

He must mean the soldier who lost his arm.

"Shotgun," one of the others says. "Human took us by surprise. He lost his arm. Made the guy pay for it, though. Mauled him like a starved piken who'd just spotted a juicy kraul."

"Beloved Leader would be proud."

"Maybe," I say. "Or perhaps he'd condemn the b.a.s.t.a.r.d for letting the human injure him in the first place. Grde should have been paying attention. Watching his flank. Our flank."

After that, my troops are quiet.

Our last target has been traced to an apartment complex in what looks like a rundown part of town. She's different from the others we've picked up if only because it wasn't her own stupidity that put her on our radar screen: someone somewhere tipped off an agency our computer experts are monitoring. We land in a small park across the street. What little gra.s.s there is crumbles under our feet as we march through the night.

"Eyes open," I mutter as we make our way to the complex. "Lots of people crammed in tight living conditions. We can expect resistance."

The troops grunt behind me. There are a few humans loitering around the parking lot. When they see us, they freeze. It takes them a few seconds to understand who we are. What we are. Then they run. I move my finger to the trigger of my blaster, expecting them to reappear with weapons or more people. To try to keep us from moving in closer to their homes. But they don't return.

Typical. Humans hide themselves away instead of facing their threats head-on.

The apartment building is made up of outdoor hallways, the front door to each unit opening to the open air. We find the one we're looking for on the first floor. The door goes down with one kick. My men flood in. Out of the corner of my eye I see blinds part in the window next door, but when I turn my head to investigate, they snap closed again.

No one comes out.

There are no adults inside, only the girl we're after. She springs from the couch, long, black hair falling over her face. Dark eyes wide with fear.

"What do you want?" she screams. "Who . . ." But she doesn't finish. She must understand at that point.

I glance at the photo and stats on my tablet. Perfect match. This was easy enough.

"Take her," I say.

My men step forward.

That's when things start to move.

First it's just the s.h.i.t strewn about the apartment. Soda cans, books, a few dirty dishes. They start to float above the stained carpet. The girl throws her arms out to her sides. Then there's a sudden ba.s.s sound, followed by a wave of invisible force. I'm still in the doorway, and the wave hits me like a brick wall, sending me flying backwards onto the concrete outside. The front window of the apartment bursts out, gla.s.s landing all around me. My men inside take the brunt of the attack. Several appear to have broken noses. The shabby coffee table and the trash and junk that had been floating around are now all piled up against the walls.

I pick myself up off the ground.

Standing alone with nothing else around her, the girl looks more helpless than before. Long, black hair floats around her head like she's been electrified. Slowly, it starts to fall down. Tears fill her eyes. She pushes her hands out again as my men get to their feet.

But this time nothing happens. No wave of telekinesis. Not even a breeze.

She looks frantic. Her eyes even wider now, mouth open in a silent scream.

"Looks like your power's failing you," one of my troops says with a grin.

She clenches her teeth and curls her hands into fists. The girl has fight, I'll give her that. She's worthier of our time than most humans.

"John Smith is going to hunt you down," she screams. "I've seen him in my head. There are a bunch of us. Hundreds. You'll never get away with this, you f.u.c.king monsters!"

I recognize the name she clings to. I know his face-the faces of all the Garde who have challenged us now that they too have come out of the shadows. But she places her faith in false hope.

"John Smith can't save you." I step into the apartment and motion to my squad members. "I told you to take her."

She bites and claws at my men. Eventually she goes slack. An empty syringe breaks as it's tossed aside.

On the way out, I see more eyes in the windows around us. Peeking out through parted curtains and slits in blinds. The other apartment doors stay locked. No one tries to stop us. Maybe it's the thrill of the hunt or the high of the destruction we've wrought tonight, but knowing that all of these people think they're safe behind doors makes my blood burn. There are explosive throwing disks on my belt, and for a moment I think of letting them loose. Toppling the entire complex.

But that's not my mission. Our mayhem must be kept out of sight. At least until Beloved Leader decides that the humans are of no more use to him.

Praise his name!

Neither of our targets stirs on the flight back to the warship. A few of my men inspect flesh wounds they received during the girl's attack.

"d.a.m.n human b.i.t.c.h," one of them mutters. The new addition. "We should wake her up now and show her what pain means. Cut her up just enough to say it happened while we were trying to capture her."

"Touch that girl and I'll turn you to dust myself," I say. "Beloved Leader wants these subjects alive. They're his property. Would you mutilate something that belongs to him?"

The soldier is silent.

"Glory to Beloved Leader," another says.

Again, the Skimmer is quiet.

The sun is still down when we get back to the warship. I'm sent up to the labs with our targets, carrying both humans over my shoulders. They're light enough. Fragile.

There are several trueborn Mogadorians in the ward, huddled around various human specimens who've been secured tonight. Like our teenage boy from the Chicago suburb. He's awake now. Gagged. Eyes big with fear as he's poked and prodded by our doctors.

One of the trueborn turns to me as I enter. He wears a long, white lab coat. I've never seen him before, but that's not surprising. I rarely mix with my trueborn superiors.

His eyes light up when he sees the humans bound up behind me. "A new delivery of specimens. How wonderful."

He motions to a few empty metal tables. I place the targets on them.

"This girl definitely has telekinesis," I tell him. "She put up a fight when we cornered her. You may want to keep her sedated."

A grin crosses the trueborn's face as he a.s.sesses the human.

"Perfect," he says. "What is your name, soldier?"

"Vintaro shaba."

He nods. "You've served Beloved Leader well, Vintaro. Your work will help us usher in a new age of Mogadorian Progress."

Another trueborn steps up beside him.

"The ship is prepped and ready for the flight to West Virginia."

"Wonderful," he says, starting for the door. He points at the girl as he leaves. "And load her onto the ship. It sounds like she may be strong enough to survive Dr. Zakos's procedures."

CHAPTER NINE.

I SLEEP SOUNDLY. SATISFIED.

I wake up hungry for more.

The vatborn barracks are in one of the warship's lower levels, a giant room with a wall full of small sleeping units, just big enough for us to sit up in. They're stacked one on top of the other, from the floor to the ceiling. Inside is a thin foam pad and a wadded-up spare uniform for a pillow. It's all we need. I get only a few hours of sleep before an intercom near my head sounds a shrill buzz. Then a voice from the speaker orders me to report to the council room again.

I leap from my sleeping unit, whizzing past the seven below me, landing in a crouch. Then I'm moving through the ship as fast as I can, up the stairs to the higher decks where the trueborn eat, sleep and work.

How many targets will we get today?

My fingers twitch in antic.i.p.ation.

Thank Beloved Leader for this glorious opportunity.

I'm the first to arrive in the council room, but the other two squad leaders from yesterday follow quickly. They're as excited as I am to be seeing action.

"Did you bring in all your humans last night?" the vet with the missing teeth asks.

I nod.

"We lost one," the other says, his dark lips grimacing. "A human was trying to fight us off and shot at everything that moved. Including our target."

"Idiot weaklings," the squad leader with the gap-filled grin grunts.

"Had to punish a soldier for it. He'd been toying with the human, playing around. Taunting it. I asked him, 'What would Beloved Leader think if he knew that you'd gotten his prey killed?'"

"What did he say?" I ask.

He shrugs. "I think I've still got some of his ash on my uniform. Ask him yourself."

The other leader burst out in laughter at this, slapping us both on the back. I tense up, gritting my teeth. I probably would have punished my own squad too if they'd done something so stupid. But this is no laughing matter. We're here to complete a mission, to follow his orders. Not to joke around. His squad's failure makes us all look bad.

But I don't get a chance to comment on that fact. The doors open, and our captain walks in. Immediately, we're all at attention. This time the reconnaissance officer trails after him. Her head is tattooed in weblike patterns and shaved except for a long, black braid sprouting from the base of her skull.