V 11 - The Texas Run Read online

  Rick’s sole hope was to reach the end of the corridor and await the alien soldier behind the building. Sucking in a deep breath, he focused on that thought. His long legs pumped out in quick sprinter’s strides, carrying him toward his goal.

  Pain!

  A lash of fiery agony slashed across his right thigh. One of the beams had grazed his leg!

  Groaning, he fought against a wave of torturous pain that swelled to engulf him. He staggered and stumbled. His shoulder slammed into solid wood that gave way beneath his weight, not shattering but swinging inward.

  A door! His brain managed to recognize that he had fallen through a side doorway into the hangar itself.

  Shifting the Uzi to his left hand, he clutched his thigh with the right and dragged himself through swirling pain and the hangar’s interior darkness. And walked straight into a barrier of cold, hard metal.

  This time his brain took what seemed like hours to focus and recognize the fact that he had collided with an airplane—a big one. Rick gritted his teeth to fight back the searing agony consuming his right leg, leaned against the metallic fuselage, and used it to guide him forward.

  His left shin slammed into a metal ramp—no ladder! He reached up, his heart doubling its runaway pace. The plane’s hatch was open.

  Amid curses and groans, he found a rung of the ladder and pulled himself up into the plane’s belly. He felt rather than saw the cardboard boxes stacked within the aircraft. A narrow path opened between the containers to his left. He pulled himself into it, then lay on his back with the Uzi pointed upward to meet the attack he knew would eventually come.

  Outside he heard footsteps—the shock trooper came to claim victory.

  Rick grimaced as he reached out with his right hand and found a handhold on the boxes. At least ten rounds remained in his clip. That was enough to take the snake with him. He pulled upward to brace himself against the boxes.

  His right thigh brushed the containers. Waves of fresh agony swelled, washing over him, dragging him down into a churning maelstrom of blackness.

  No! I won’t die like this! he railed as unconsciousness swallowed him.

  Chapter 2

  Garth removed the dark sunglasses that protected eyes never meant to endure the harshness of Earth’s yellow sun. For several silent moments he rubbed at the comers of his eyes with his good right hand, attempting to relieve the constant itching. Even after all these long months, he had not grown accustomed to the human-imitating lenses he wore.

  Blinking several times to readjust the cosmetic lenses, Garth stared down at the dead stump that had once been his left hand. A smile that contained no trace of warmth curled his lips. If all went as he planned, he would soon permanently remove the irritation of these foolish lenses and revenge himself on the one who had cost him his hand.

  As well as assuring my promotion to the commander of the invasion fleet! His smile widened to a grin, but the expression remained devoid of warmth.

  Garth’s gaze rose to the one-way mirror he stood before. On the opposite side of the glass wall, a young human female sat nude on an examination table. New life growing within her womb swelled her pink belly like a ripe, summery melon.

  “Are you certain, Yvonne?” Garth asked, trying to imagine another human female, the woman who had burned away his hand, sitting on the table, her stomach bloated with child—his child!

  “As I’ve assured you since we began this experiment

  two months ago, I’ve duplicated Diana’s efforts.” A silky-haired brunette stepped beside Garth and peered coldly through the one-way mirror. “The fetuses are mature. The human cow will give birth before the week is out. You will have your star children.”

  “I will have the way to conquer this world,” Garth said simply.

  Yvonne’s almond-shaped eyes shifted to the commander of the Houston Mother Ship. “Are you certain a hybrid is the key you seek?”

  “Yes,” he answered, his voice containing a certainty lacking in his mind.

  Yet the genetic-engineered hybrid of human and Visitor had to be the key. Why else would the fleet’s Scientific Commander Diana have produced Elizabeth Maxwell in the first place, were it not for the power she expected to unleash to aid her in crushing Earth? And why else would the ambitious bitch expend so much energy in trying to steal the star child from the humans, were it not for the same reason?

  “I am not so certain, Garth.” Yvonne shook her head and looked back at the human female who carried the seed of her experiment. “We are faced with too many unknowns. Two fetuses have developed in our subject. Even simple sonic scans reveal that our genes are dominant in one, while the human genes dominate the other. Everything indicates the same was true with Diana’s own experiment. If so, what happened to the Visitor-dominant child?”

  “Perhaps the humans butchered it,” Garth replied, studying the determined set of Yvonne’s oval face. “After all, Robin Maxwell gave birth after her escape from Diana’s Mother Ship.”

  He paused and looked back at the human female. “However, the answers to your questions will have to wait. I want this woman and the life she carries in her belly destroyed.”

  “Destroyed?” Yvonne’s head jerked around. Her eyes went saucer wide, then narrowed to slits.

  “I have no further use for this female. Have her killed,” Garth said. “I want it done before I fly north to Dallas.”

  “But the children she carries—aren’t they what we’ve been working for these past two months?” Yvonne’s voice rose an octave as she spoke. “How can you order her killed? How can you waste what I have given you?” “She has served her purpose, proven that you can duplicate Diana’s efforts.” Garth turned away from his science officer. “But this woman will not mother my star child, nor shall some nameless soldier father it. The key I seek will be of my own blood, Yvonne. A child of my own flesh will lead us to victory.”

  “A child of your own flesh. ” Yvonne’s voice quavered as she repeated his words. “Garth, what are—” “Order this woman executed, Yvonne!” Garth pivoted and glared at his companion. “Do it now. I want her and the life she carries burned to a crisp. I want no trace to remain of her. Do you understand that?”

  Yvonne nodded hesitantly, but said, “As you wish, Garth.”

  “Then do it now,” he replied. “I will be here watching to make certain my orders are carried out.”

  Without another word Yvonne turned and walked from the small office. When the door closed behind her, Garth’s gaze shifted back to the examination room on the other side of the mirror.

  A minute later the door to the examination room opened and two shock troopers entered. The human female didn’t even have time to scream before the soldiers unleased their weapons on her vulnerable body.

  Garth smiled. Yvonne had been right; the woman’s death was a waste. The young female would have made a nice main course for dinner that evening.

  Chapter 3

  A cloud of bothersome gnats swarmed about Rick Hurley’s head. Lifting both arms, he swatted at the pesky insects.

  In midair the gnats changed into hornets. Their droning roared in his ears as they dived around his head.

  No! Rick refused to accept the abrupt metamorphosis.

  In the next instant he sat in an empty roller coaster car as it hurled head-on down a hundred-foot drop.

  No! Again Rick’s brain rejected the sensations bombarding it. Gnats grown to hornets, roller coasters magically appearing from thin air—they simply could not be.

  Unless— Cold sweat prickled over the young freedom fighter’s body. He had heard of the horrors the lizards visited upon those they selected for mind molding. —I’m in a conversion chamber!

  Swallowing the scream of panic that pushed its way up his throat, Rick struggled past the vision of the hurling roller coaster. Darkness swirled about him, then shattered into splintered fragments when he jerked his eyes open.

  He stared up the side of a skyscraper of cardboard boxes. He blinked; the
wall of brown corrugated containers remained. His right hand lifted, fingers testing the solid, unyielding surface of the boxes.

  Real? Rick’s brow knitted. More confusing than the

  disturbing dream were the neatly stacked boxes that towered on each side of him.

  The deafening drone—it still filled his ears.

  How?

  He rolled to the right in an attempt to sit. Pain burned through his thigh, and he remembered!

  “Damn!” he cursed aloud and groaned as he sank to his back. The Visitor trap at the airport, the energy bolt grazing his leg, the hangar and the plane in which he had taken refuge—all came rushing back into his mind.

  At that very instant the floor beneath him bucked. And again.

  He groaned with the realization of what had given birth to his dream insects and roller coaster. The airplane he had hidden in was now airborne!

  “Son of . . .’’He muffled the rest of the curse. His head cocked from side to side. Another sound moved within the constant drone of the aircraft’s engines— footsteps! They came toward him.

  Ignoring the fiery pain awakened with each twist of his body, his arms groped around him, hands searching for the Uzi he had clasped when he had passed out.

  Gone! My gun’s gone!

  “Well, I see you finally woke up. We were wonderin’ if you’d decided to sleep until Judgment Day. You’ve been out for the long side of six hours now.”

  Rick’s head twisted around. A tall, statuesque, flaming-haired angel dressed in khaki coveralls hovered over him. An ivory smile moved across an oval face lightly dusted with a sprinkle of fading freckles. Deep emerald eyes flashing an impish sparkle met his.

  “Beautiful.” The word slipped from his lips as though it had been uttered by a man in shock.

  The coverall-clad angel’s smile widened to a grin, and she chuckled. “A few fellows have told me the same thing. However, they were a mite more enthusiastic in their delivery.”

  The fiery-haired beauty slipped an olive-drab pouch off her shoulder and knelt beside Rick. “Of course, that was usually with a big ol’ yellow moon overhead and the ulterior motive of lullin’ my feminine defenses and lurin’ me into a quick session of backseat bingo.”

  Rick continued to stare like a man in a trance. He had expected to be greeted by helmeted Visitor shock troopers. Instead, an angel had been sent to rescue him.

  The silky strands of her shoulder-length hair swayed gently when she tilted her head to one side and eyed Rick’s wounded thigh. “That line didn’t work with red-blooded, healthy young jocks. For a man who tried to get his leg burned off, you’ll have to come up with something a mite more original, Surfer Boy.”

  Rick blinked and shook his head. For the first time he noticed the young woman’s accent, a slightly nasal twang that was somewhere between Old South Belle of the Ball and Southwestern Rodeo Queen. He smiled, his eyes never leaving that beautiful face.

  “An angel with a southern accent.” It was his turn to chuckle. “I passed out in the middle of a nightmare and I’ve woken up in the middle of a situation comedy.” “Watch your own mouth, friend. There’s not a bit of the South in these words. It’s all bred, bom, and raised Texan.” The redhead flashed Rick a mock scowl, then grinned widely. “Now if you’ll scoot down my way a tad, I’ll take a good look at that leg the snakes tried to shoot off.”

  Rick did as she suggested. The young beauty gingerly lifted a scorched flap of his blue jeans and studied the wound beneath. She pursed her lips and shook her head before her emerald-hued eyes returned to the resistance fighter.

  “I know you were expectin’ to take your insurance company to the cleaners over this, but I’m afraid I have to disappoint you. I’ve seen people come off the beaches in Galveston with worse bums than you’re sportin’.”

  She opened the pouch, extracted a pair of scissors, and widened the rent in his pants an additional two inches. “You have a name?”

  “Richard Hurley.”

  He grimaced when he glimpsed the wound the Visitor’s energy bolt had left. To him, it looked far nastier than a sunburn.

  “Most people call me Rick.”

  “Rick, mine’s Sheryl Lee—Sheryl Lee Darcy.” She pulled a tube of bum jelly from the pouch and spread a cool, clear layer of the disinfectant-smelling goop over the wound. “I was taught you weren’t supposed to bandage a bum, but I think we need to give this a little protection and help keep it clean.”

  From the first-aid kit she produced a self-adhesive pad and lightly covered the wound. “That should be loose enough to let it breathe. Now let’s see if we can get you on your feet.”

  “My feet?” Rick made no attempt to hide his doubt when Sheryl Lee stood and held out a helping hand. “You sure about this?”

  “It’s more comfortable up front, and Joe Bob wants to meet you.” She snapped her fingers and impatiently straightened her arm. “Besides, you’ll be wantin’ to give your thank-yous to Joe Bob. He took care of the Visitor that followed you into the hangar last night.”

  Rick had forgotten the shock trooper who had followed him into the darkness. “I guess I do owe this Joe Bob a thank-you.” He accepted Sheryl Lee’s hand, and her fingers closed around his with surprising strength.

  “I’ll pull on three,” she said. “One . . . two . . . three!"

  With Sheryl Lee tugging and Rick pushing, they managed to get him to his feet with a minimum of groans and curses. He took a tentative step with his right leg, winced as pain flared anew through the thigh, and stood there swaying.

  Sheryl Lee wrapped an arm around his waist. “Lean on me until you get your legs back. I don’t want to pick you up from the floor again.”

  Without protest Rick slipped an arm around the redhead’s waist. He smiled. The coveralls were loose and the firm form he felt beneath the khaki hinted of shapely feminine curves.

  “I admit this is awful cozy, but the idea is to get you to the cockpit.” Sheryl Lee flashed another of her ivory smiles and tilted her head forward. “Time to walk.”

  Rick grimaced and cursed when he placed his weight on the wounded leg. Sheryl Lee ignored the protest and edged him forward. By the sixth step Rick walked on his own with his redheaded nurse standing beside him with open arms to catch him should he falter.

  “More stiff than painful,” he admitted after another six steps. It was only a half lie. The bum did hurt, but he could almost ignore the pain—almost.

  Slowly, cautiously, with Sheryl Lee ever ready in case he fell, they managed to squeeze their way between the secured stacks of cardboard boxes lining the length of the plane. Reaching the front of the craft, Rick glanced inside. Predawn grays and purples filled the windows that stretched above the lights of the plane’s control panels.

  A door had once separated the cockpit from the rest of the plane. The rusty remnants of hinges Rick noticed as he ducked through the doorway suggested that decades had passed since they last had served a useful function.

  “So our stowaway finally decided to join us,” a deep voice, as thickly accented as Sheryl Lee’s, drawled when the two maneuvered through the low doorway.

  “Name’s Joe Bob Wills.” The cockpit’s sole occupant swiveled in the pilot’s seat and extended a large-knuckled hand the size of a small island in Rick’s general direction. “Named after my daddy and momma’s favorite musician, the King of Western Swing himself, Bob Wills.”

  Rick accepted the pilot’s hand, shook it, and mumbled his own name, uncertain what the man was talking about or what to make of the aircraft’s pilot.

  The man’s faded khaki jump suit might have been a twin to the one Sheryl Lee wore. Skull-tight, a worn and cracked aviator cap, complete with goggles resting on the forehead, nestled atop Joe Bob’s head and drooped over his ears. A forest of salt-and-pepper hair pushed from under the edges of the cap to blend with another hairy forest bushed over the bottom part of the man’s face.

  Rick estimated the pilot’s age in the late thirties or early for
ties. Yet he could not push aside the thought that Joe Bob appeared to be a geriatric case escaped from a 1960s love-in.

  Releasing his stowaway’s hand, Joe Bob Wills lifted a long, lanky arm and waved around the cockpit in a gesture that ended with him pointing at Sheryl Lee. “And this is my liT darlin’ Wanda Sue.”

  “Wanda Sue?” Rick’s gaze shot to the redhead; his forehead furrowed, questioning.

  “He means the plane, not me. Joe Bob never loved a woman for more than one night,” Sheryl Lee said as she slipped into the co-pilot’s seat. “No woman could ever compete with this damned ol’ airplane.”

  “What sweeter lover could a man ask for than a grand ol’ lady like my Wanda Suel” Joe Bob grinned widely and motioned Rick to a navigator’s seat behind Sheryl Lee. “She wheezes a mite sometimes, and she coughs and spits. And on occasion she been known to leak at her seams. But, Lord, they don’t make ’em like the C-47 anymore!”

  C-47! Rick swallowed. He remembered building a plastic model of the Douglas-constructed transport while in his early teens. The twin-engine airplane hadn’t been in production for over three decades! It had earned its claim to fame in World War II during the Normandy invasion, and later in 1948 during the Berlin airlift.

  He swallowed again, hard. Fear prickled along his spine; his stomach did a sickly flip-flop. Worse, he was suddenly acutely aware of the aircraft’s constant uneven vibration. He was flying in an antique, a relic of an age when jets seemed like science fiction. And in the pilot’s seat was some aging hippie dressed like the Red Baron!

  “I have to thank you and your friends for giving us cover last night,” Joe Bob said over the roar of Wanda Sue’s dual engines. “Sheryl Lee and I had been sittin’ in that hangar back at John Wayne for two days, right under the snakes’ noses. Hell, we were sure they’d find us— and our cargo—any moment. If you and the others hadn’t provided a diversion, we might never have gotten out of there.”