COLD WAR: Alien Siege: Book 2 Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cold War: Alien Siege

  1

  2

  3 - Jonesy

  4 - Jonesy

  5 - Keenan

  6

  7 - Jonesy

  8 - Mack

  9 - Jonesy

  10

  11 - Sasha

  12 - Mack

  13 - Sasha

  14 - Mack

  15 - Jonesy

  16

  17 - Phillips

  18 - Phillips

  Acknowledgements

  The Cold War Series

  About the Authors

  COLD WAR: ALIEN SIEGE

  KEN BEBELLE AND JULIA VEE

  Copyright © 2017 Ken Bebelle and Julia Vee

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced

  or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission

  of the publisher except for the use of

  brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, 2017

  Sixth Moon Press

  P.O. Box 2802

  Cupertino, CA 95015

  Cover by Elizabeth Mackey

  Editing by Julian St. Aubyn Green

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  Cold War: Alien Siege

  1

  Jonesy stumbled to the door and stood there panting from the exertion. Cam waited for him to catch his breath and peered into the corridor. Other than the quiet rumble of the engines, there was no sign of activity. Cam wrapped her left arm around Jonesy’s chest to support him, and held her knife out as they advanced into the hall. She felt him shivering in the cool air of the hallway.

  “We have to find a shuttle bay, or take over the bridge,” Cam said. “Did you see anything like that when they brought you on board?”

  He shook his head. His brow furrowed in its familiar way, “The lab is this way,” pointing to the right. “Let's try the other way.” His recall was better than hers. Cam didn’t remember the lab. Or maybe she just didn’t want to. Later.

  They made their way awkwardly, Cam’s leg hurting a bit from the wound the alien inflicted and Jonesy still a bit wobbly. The corridor stretched before them, bathed in eldritch light. As they passed Cam’s open door, Jonesy sucked in a breath, seeing the carnage inside.

  “Holy shit….” he breathed.

  The walls of the room were spattered with gore. The alien hung off the bed, entrails glistening obscenely from where Cam had gutted him.

  “Close the door,” Cam said. “We can’t risk him being found. Hit the round panel next to the door.”

  Jonesy hit the panel with his left hand. Nothing happened. He hit it again. Cam scooted around him, then slammed her palm against the panel. With equal parts dismay and relief, she watched the display engage and the door slide shut. She then concentrated on the hallways and imagined zooming out. In her mind, images whirled too fast for her to process. Cam staggered and dropped her palm from the display. Dammit.

  Cam dragged in a long breath, trying to focus. What did they need? A ship, guns, and clothes. She looked down at herself, her skin tinged violet in the dim corridor light. Yeah, clothes would be good.

  “What was that?”

  Cam looked up at Jonesy. “What was what?”

  “You got the door to close. How did you do that? It’s not a mechanical switch. How did you make it work?”

  “I don’t… I don’t know.”

  She told him how she escaped her room, and how she found him and the other dead man. Jonesy’s eyes lost focus as he considered what was happening. His gaze dropped to the blue skin of her arm supporting him, and then to the stump of his right arm. Cam’s intuition hinted at a yawning chasm threatening to pull her down, but she held her breath, waiting for Jonesy to speak.

  Jonesy looked at the crusted palm print she had left on the display, and then turned to look at her again, this time taking in her freakish state.

  “How’s your leg?”

  “What?”

  “Your leg. Looks like you took a nasty hit there. How is it?”

  Cam saw the crusted gore on her left thigh where the robot arm injured her. Nothing seemed to be hurting in this cold air, though. She wiped away the blood, and found nothing but intact blue skin beneath. When she pushed on the spot gently, she could still feel the pain of the wound and she winced.

  Jonesy’s eyebrows popped up. He turned his attention to the empty hallway. Cam waited for him to say something about her but Jonesy merely said, “Let’s keep going.”

  He eased out from under her arm, and began making his own way down the hall, falling into the familiar role of point man. Another wary twenty meters down the hall they found a branching passage to their right and a ladder going through the ceiling and the floor. Jonesy began checking the walls near the intersection, running his hand along the strange nodules that sprouted from the conduits. His amputated arm waved futilely as he searched, and he kept shifting his body to allow his left arm to do the work.

  Cam rolled back and forth on the balls of her feet, pushing lightly into the smooth floor. The cool metal felt good, like it was sending a charge up through her calves. She flexed her legs, feeling like she could leap up on the wall and climb the rest of the way. Before she could try it though, Jonesy smacked the wall, startling her.

  He pushed and pulled at various points, mumbling under his breath, exhaling mist as he spoke. Next to the ladder, he located another circular panel.

  He put his hand on it, and waited a beat. “Nothing. You try it.”

  Gritting her teeth, she reached out for it.

  In the space between heartbeats, she was transported, viewing the ship from the Earth’s atmosphere. She was dwarfed by the vast emptiness surrounding the ship as it hovered above the clouds. She didn’t see stars or planets. Not dark enough. Abruptly, her head jerked as vertigo brought acidic bile to the back of her throat. Biting back her nausea, she focused on the ship.

  Panting through her teeth, “I can see the ship’s interior.”

  Jonesy grunted, “Good. What can you tell me? Can you tell where we are on it?” From the sound of his voice, she could tell he was facing away from her, teeth chattering, keeping watch.

  The ship was massive. Far larger than any of the jump ships they’d seen on earth so far. If she was to guess, larger than anything humans ever built. A massive central core, with radiating arms on multiple levels. The frame of the ship bulged and thinned in areas. What looked like reservoir tanks and storage pods dotted the silhouette at regular intervals. Several lifts ran through the central axis. At the top of the core, she saw something like a communications array.

  Cam exhaled sharply, stunned by the size of this vessel. This might not even the largest in the alien armada. And she believed sincerely there had to be an armada despite the lack of intel on it. With their luck, she and Jonesy were stuck on some kind of research vessel, lab rats for the Ringheads. This was beyond anything she could have imagined. Before despair could suck her down its familiar hole, she breathed in again, and concentrated on finding something familiar.

  “It’s huge, Jonesy. We’ve never seen anything this big!” Her eyes traced blindly around the corridor, seeing only the massive alien vessel.

  “Ok, slow it down. Focus. Look for anyt
hing that can help us. Is there another ship we can get to? Can you see a weapons locker?”

  Cam closed her eyes and the display panned, slowing on the engine room at the bottom of the core. Not the docking bay, but still useful. Cam stayed there for a long moment, altering the view point from birds-eye to moving through the engine room. Here the aliens were so close, they almost brushed by her virtual presence as they worked. She had to remind herself that she wasn’t really there to quell the urge to bolt.

  She counted, two, four, six, eight….when she got to eleven, she zoomed back out. Too many to take the engine room. C’mon, c’mon...where’s the garage on this thing?

  A short way from the engine room she saw it. The familiar silhouette of a Ringhead jumpship, secured in a small docking bay.

  Hope soared in her chest. “There’s a jumpship! We can take the central lift to--”

  “F- f- fuck it,” Jonesy broke in, “I’ll s- set- settle for c- cl- clothes. Wh- Where's the lock- locker r- r- room?”

  Cam reached out, still seeing the ship, and groped for his shoulder and felt him trembling. Nausea threatened to overtake her again as she began her ghost-like jump along the ship, searching for some kind of reference point.

  This time, she found it.

  Halfway up the ship, a section with a regular distribution of identical rooms. A brig? She focused closer and ended up looking at the back of her own head. Next to her, Jonesy crouched on the floor, rubbing his chest to keep warm. Cam looked at him with concern. He was looking worse than when she nabbed him from the room, his complexion ashy under his normal dark skin tone. His teeth chattered and Cam recognized her own uncomfortable guilt from feeling remarkably good at this icy temperature. She needed to get Jonesy to a warmer spot.

  A quick scan of this section showed another Ringhead two levels above them. One of the rooms on their level was larger than the others, and showed promise. She took her hand off the panel and felt her stomach drop again as she came back to the corridor.

  “Come on, this level is clear, and we need to get to the other side.”

  2

  This room is a dumpster. Piles of clothing and gear from dozens of people littered the floor. A haphazard array of rifles hung on the near wall. Towards the back, several open containers smelled of spoiling meat. Cam tried not to look towards the back of the room.

  Cam sorted through the clothes and gear, pulling out a patchwork of Dubs, USMC, and Sino-Sov uniforms for them. Jonesy pulled the rifles down, moving at half his usual speed, picking out the ones with a decent charge remaining. Cam refrained from helping Jonesy, instead concentrating on finding each of them a pistol.

  “We’ve got three plasma rifles with a decent charge here.” He strapped one across his chest and passed the others to her. Cam held up four pistols triumphantly in response.

  “What do you think happens if we fire these in here? If we miss?” She looked at the walls around them, trying to picture the endless hard vacuum that surrounded them.

  “I don’t miss.”

  “Lefty?”

  “Even lefty.”

  Jonesy ripped into a survival kit with his teeth and passed her a food bar as he devoured one himself. Cam watched Jonesy struggle to properly holster his pistols. She hated seeing him in this state. Of course, being Jonesy, he didn’t complain.

  Cam pocketed the signal flares from the kit as well as the meds. As he finished eating Jonesy tongued a stim tab. Cam watched the color in his face flush back, saw his pupils enlarge as the drug jacked up his ravaged system. He shouldered a small pack with more scavenged supplies.

  She palmed another control panel and re-confirmed the locations of the Ringheads.

  “We go down the central lift and we can get to the jumpship. But from here to there we’ll have to avoid several Ringheads.”

  “Which kind?”

  “Take your pick. They’re all pretty terrible,” Despite her flippant response, Cam thought about it and counted mentally. “One scientist, ten grunts.”

  “Ok, our best bet is to keep a low profile as far as we can. The only way we’re getting out of here is that docking bay, assuming we can actually fly the jumpship,” He jammed his pistol into the front of his pants and slung the rifle to his left side. “Let me take point from here, we have to make sure you--”

  His head jerked up. Jonesy side stepped to the left side of the door and paused, listening. He risked a quick look into the hallway.

  “They’re here,” he whispered. “Not on us yet, but they’re on this deck. I count three, all Hunters. They just got off the lift and they’re headed to check our cells.”

  “Can we break for the lift?”

  Jonesy’s lips pulled down into a frown. “Negative. There’s no cover in the hallway. Plus, the hall is probably circular, which would make it too easy for them to get behind us.”

  Cam hopped to and slid her hand over the display. The dizzy feeling didn’t last long this time, and to her distress, she watched the lift open again and two more grunts get off. Jonesy turned to her and she could feel the shared dread and spike of adrenaline as they prepared to face five warrior Ringheads.

  Jonesy adjusted his rifle, his movements simultaneously smooth and awkward as he braced for close quarters combat. She flattened herself on the opposite side of the door and mirrored his stance. She ran her fingers over the plasma rifle, acquainting her hands with the feel of smooth barrel and the trigger pull.

  From the doorway they had a clear view down the central hallway running past the lifts. From her side of the door she could cover the right-hand branch, and Jonesy could cover the left. She was about to reach up for the control panel and check on the Ringheads’ position when loud, clattering footfalls began echoing through the hallway.

  3

  * * *

  JONESY

  Jonesy crouched against the doorframe, keeping his profile to the absolute minimum to cover the hallway that led directly to them. Even with the pounding footsteps echoing around them, his enhanced ears told him the absolute truth: the Ringheads were headed down the central corridor. Which was a good thing because his stump of a right arm was doing piss-all to help stabilize his rifle. Any second now…

  He glanced quickly at Cam, or, what Cam had become. He felt sure the LT was in there, otherwise she wouldn’t be helping him try to escape. Yet seeing her like this, her skin blue, strong enough to take down a Ringhead with just a knife…it all sent his hind brain into high alert. Jonesy fell back on his training.

  Assess risks.

  Ringheads = wolves.

  Cam = wolf in sheep’s clothing.

  Jonesy = sheep.

  Conclusion = risk on all sides.

  His active imagination already had a working theory about what the aliens were trying to do with them...maybe successfully with the LT. Knowing Cam as he did, she was probably bulling ahead without a lot of thought to her situation.

  While he was dressed in two sets of fatigues topped with Sino-Sov furs, she was dressed like they were in the tropics. She’d grumbled and ripped off the sleeves and neckline of her uniform, turning it into a muscle tank. She’d torn the legs off her uniform for a set of cargo shorts. He’d inhaled two food bars, and his stomach was still growling, while she had barely touched hers.

  No question, the scientist had changed her, made her like them. And of course, her ability to use the alien tech was at once a tantalizing asset and mind-bogglingly frightening.

  So he kept his focus wide, keeping her in his periphery at all times. It felt like betrayal, to treat her like this, but if she turned on him, he wasn’t about to get caught out. He pondered if he would be able to take the shot, and then another part of his mind wondered what it would take to drop her. In any case, the Cam he knew would want him to try.

  His mantra, the thing that kept him alive when the shit hit the fan, was first things first. First survive the Ringheads attacking them, then worry about how much of the LT was left in that changed blue body.

&nb
sp; “Here they come, right down the chute.”

  Cam nodded, “Hold your fire until they’re all visible. Let’s not lose track of any of them.”

  The Ringheads appeared at the far end of the corridor. By the time the first one reached the lift, the last one rounded the corner. Jonesy tightened his grip as best he could on the rifle, wedging it against the doorframe. “Now?”

  “Drop it.”

  As one they fired, pouring rounds into the first Ringhead. The alien crumpled under the assault, dropping to one knee. The other Ringheads ran towards them, roaring in their strange way. The lead Ringhead stood up, arms braced in front of it as a shield. Jonesy battered it with plasma blasts, but its arms were protecting the neck area he was aiming for. This isn’t going to work.

  As they continued firing on the first alien, he saw one of the others opening a panel in the wall across from the lift entrance. It pulled a weapon out of the open panel.

  “LT, take the Ringheads in the rear!”

  As he kept pounding fire into the lead alien, Cam switched targets, forcing the others to bob and weave. She managed to bullseye one of the alien weapons, causing it to erupt in a shower of blinding sparks.

  As always, the firefight took place below his wrist, dispensing scorching plasma as naturally as water flowing downhill. His mind became detached, analyzing their position even as the fight raged around them. He kept an ear on Cam, paying attention to her breathing--a little fast, which was normal for her in battle. So that much hadn’t changed.

  The gun was getting hot against his face as he continued firing on the lead Ringhead. The incessant chatter of the rifle filled the air around them with the noise of joyful destruction. Just for kicks he dropped his aim and took out one of its knees. Its leg collapsed but the alien stayed up, still with its arms braced protectively. Damn, these things are disciplined.

  They couldn't afford to waste resources on this crap. They had started with low reserves to begin with, and if they hoped to make it off this ship they were going to need more than they had. Down range, he watched one of the aliens lean on the panel coming out of the wall and rip it off its moorings. Well, crap. It pulled another weapon out of the locker and began advancing down the hall, using the panel as a riot shield. Behind it, Jonesy could make out the others arming themselves.