Survivors

Luke and Joe had heard the battle a long time before they had seen it. Luke put Joe down, changed to an eagle and launched himself into the air. He went up high and used his eagle sight to check out what was going on. He could see the Aliens advancing in a large crescent with the transporters following slightly behind. They were all moving slowly away from him. Through the smoke he could also see the men retreating into the woods leaving the helicopters behind them. He frantically searched for Holly among the retreating figures. He only realised he’d been holding his breath when he let out a great sigh of relief when he finally spotted her.

Even at this distance Luke could tell that things were not going well for the men. He could see several bodies strewn on the floor and three of the helicopters appeared to be well ablaze. All of the Aliens attention was focussed on the men, they seemed to be paying no notice at all to what was happening behind them.

He hovered in the sky for a few moments taking in the chaos that was laid out in front of him. Then in an instant a plan formed in Luke’s mind. He remembered telling Bretnel about the transporters and specifically about the gas that they pumped out of the back. Bretnel had got really interested in the gas and the vent it came out of and had asked him a whole heap of questions. Luke had eventually got fed up with all this and was about to stomp off. Bretnel had stopped him and had patiently told him that the gas, almost without doubt, came from huge energy packs that powered not only the transporter but that the other Aliens, Scouts, Hunter Killers and the like would use to recharge themselves and their weapons.

“That vent could well be the transporters Achilles heel” Bretnel had gone on. “I believe that the vent leads straight to that pack, hit it the pack with an energy bolt and I think you would see something pretty spectacular”.

Even if Bretnel was right (and Luke sincerely hoped he was) the problem would be hitting the power pack. The opening would obviously be a pretty small target. He’d seen the transporters vent the gas hundreds of times, so he knew what he was looking for. The gas always came from a small hole that was on the underside of the transporter towards the rear and was smack bang in the middle.

So all Luke had to do was send a laser bolt straight up the vent and KABOOOMM, no more ship! Or at least that was the theory, or at least that was the theory that Bretnel had put forward having never even seen a transporter! What could go wrong!

Luke flew back down to Joe.

“What the hell’s going on” demanded Joe “Is Holly okay?” His voice was full of concern.

“She’s okay!” replied Luke trying to sound reassuring. “But I need to do something really dangerous and I need to ask you to do it too”.

“Anything”.

“Do you think you can fly at all with that arm like that?”

Joe hesitated for a moment, then he said “Yes, yes I can!”

“Good. Here’s what were going to do. We need to fly full pelt and as low as possible under those transporters. When we get to them we need to flip over onto our backs and fire a bolt straight up the power pack vent. Then get the hell out of there before it goes boom”.

“Up the what!!?”

“You know” said Luke testily, as he’d described the plan it had sounded mad even to him, so he didn’t need Joe picking holes in it because it was all he had. “The vent, we’ve seen them a hundred times near the rear of the transporter, almost dead centre”.

“Yeah I know the thing” said Joe still looking puzzled “But that thing is only about two inches across. How the hell are we going to hit that!”

“I know, I know” snapped Luke “But you know what I said about Holly! Well I lied, she’s not okay, she’s pretty damn far from okay, so we need to do this and we need to do it now. Okay!”

“Okay” said Joe. There were times when Luke said things when there was no point in arguing, this was one of those times. Besides if Luke had come up with a plan as hair brained as this then Holly must be in real trouble, and as Joe didn’t have a better plan, then hair brained was the best that they had.

“Err there is one problem” said Joe.

“What!?” snapped Luke.

“I haven’t got my rifle anymore” replied Joe sheepishly.

“Shit!” said Luke with real venom. “Okay, okay” he went on thinking hard. There was a pause for a moment. “You need to cause some sort of distraction that will buy me the time to do them both. I will hit the one on the right while you distract the one on the left. I’ll do a big arc and swoop back and do the one on the left while you get the hell out of there. Hopefully the second one will be tracking you to give me a chance to get to it before it picks me up”.

“How do you want me to distract it?” asked Joe.

“Oh just be yourself. You’re pretty bloody annoying just as you are” said Luke almost grinning. “I’m sure you’ll think of something. Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be”.

“Let’s go then”.

Both boys took off. The pain in Joe’s shoulder was almost unbearable and waves of nausea kept sweeping over him, but this was for Holly, so there was no way he was going to give in to the pain. As he raced towards the transporter he made up his mind what he was going to do.

“This one’s for Bretnel” he thought.

Deep in his belly some rumbling and grumbling started bubbling. His insides grew more and more uncomfortable as the rumblings grew louder and the bubbling hotter. Then it began to feel like a burning bowling ball was making its way up from his stomach. He began to stretch his mouth open wider and wider as the ball reached his chest. His jaw dislocated (just like a snakes) and as the ball moved up his throat and then suddenly rocketed out of his mouth. Joe felt his lips singe and he felt like he had the worst ever heartburn ever, but boy was it worth it. The bowling ball size fireball soared towards and then crashed into the back of the transporter and smashed through the armour with a reassuringly loud bang.

“Now I need to go!” he thought “And fast!”

Keeping low and despite the raging pain in his shoulder he zig zagged just above the tree tops. He was absolutely intent on getting away but he also knew he had to keep the transporters lasers occupied long enough to give Luke a chance to... and then the shockwave of the blast hit him. He plummeted totally out of control towards the ground. This time there was no woodlouse transformation and he smashed into the ground with a sickening thump. Joe lay crumpled and bleeding on the floor, unmoving and unconscious.