Survivors

The next week was busy, really busy. If they weren’t training they were either sleeping, eating or taking their shift as the base lookout. Being lookout was not “cool” it was boring, really boring, almost as boring as it had been being lookout at the camp. A lookout shift consisted of sitting in the little surveillance room for four hours staring at the bank of TV and computer screens with absolutely nothing to see, and listening intently on headphones with even less to hear. It didn’t seem to matter if it was day or night, morning or afternoon, nothing at all happened.

The first week of training had all been hand to hand combat. Actually it was very rarely hand to hand, it was more hand to tentacle, tentacle to claw, claw to tooth and so on. They shredded punch bags, mattresses and dustbins, in fact pretty much anything that could be pummelled and punched and wasn’t needed was systematically destroyed.

They took to fighting in very much the same way they had to flying. Holly was controlled and precise, Luke was intense and focussed while Joe was erratic and in all honesty as much a danger to himself as he was to the thing he was supposed to be hitting.

Bretnel eventually let them move on to some gentle sparing, but nearly every time he let them do this it quite quickly got out of hand with Luke and Joe trading some hefty blows. Bretnel’s training seemed to focus as much on defence as anything else. Instantly forming a rock hard shell, or thick leathery skin, and especially being agile enough to not be where a blow was aimed by the time it got there.

They also spent time everyday doing what Bretnel called “ranged” attacks. This involved firing ink, releasing clouds of venomous smoke and even creating the fireballs that had so impressed Joe when they’d first seen them. All of these were hard as they required accuracy, energy, focus and usually something very unpleasant shooting out of your body. The attack Joe seemed to master better than anyone was the electric shock.

“That’s just my sparkling personality” he’d say about fifty times a day to a rapidly growing chorus of groans.

All of this activity kept their minds pretty well occupied. Tired, aching and more than a little bit bruised they went to bed each night absolutely exhausted. Even Luke seemed so completely absorbed in what was happening that he forgot to be miserable.

Bretnel seemed to be having less of his attacks. Whether it was because of all the physical activity, stress or just having something really important to focus on they didn’t know. It was odd that being busy and focussed on something, even if it was a bad something, everyone just seemed happy, or at least happier than they normally did.

A few nights later when Luke was on the late shift Joe was woken up by Holly climbing into his bed and cuddling into his back. He never let her know he was awake, it was just nice to feel her next to him warm and soft. These felt like good days. Good days that were about to end.

The next day started badly! Luke had been grumpy from the moment he woke up. The old sulky surliness was back with a vengeance. He was so miserable during breakfast that Holly and Joe had given up trying to talk to him, to each other or indeed to make any noise at all. Holly had taken herself off to the surveillance room to relive Bretnel earlier than she needed to just to get away from the atmosphere. It didn’t even take Bretnel long to pick up on the bad vibe when he’d arrived for his tea and toast. So it was a real relief when Bretnel finished his last mouthful and suggested they start training.

Down in the gym Bretnel had made some mock up Alien’s out of some old oil drums and compressed gas bottles. The exercise was one they’d already done many times before. They had to sprint past the Alien at top speed and slice at it with a claw or blade of some sort. They’d both done it a couple of times and had inflicted some fairly hefty damage when Luke suddenly lost it. Instead of sprinting past he abruptly screeched to a halt next to the battered Alien. With a blood curdling roar he morphed his fists into a pair of massive armour clad clawed feet. He then proceeded to smash his fists repeatedly down onto the Alien like a pair of giant hammers. He just kept hitting and roaring, roaring and hitting until the target was a mangled, crushed heap.

Utterly exhausted Luke changed back to his normal shape and slumped down onto the floor panting heavily.

“Do you feel a little less… bitter now?” asked Bretnel.

“No!” Panted Luke “I don’t”.

“I didn’t think you would” replied Bretnel.

“What the hell’s wrong with you today?” shouted Joe.

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong with me” stormed Luke “He said we’d be armed and so far he hasn’t given us so much as a spud gun! This running around and hitting tin cans is little more than playing pat-a-cake. I want to do some real damage to some real Aliens and I want to do it now!”

“And that is exactly why…” began Bretnel, but just exactly what he was going to say they never found out, because at that precise moment Holly burst into the room shouting.

“It’s the Aliens, they’ve found us!”