Darren Wearmouth - The Critical Trilogy Box Set

Ben so wanted to do what she suggested. Although life wasn’t brilliant in the ship, at least it was safe, predictable. They were in the right place there, the right time. Out here? It was too chaotic.

But regardless, Ben knew Charlie and Denver were right. This was their home now. They owed it to all the people who were killed by the croatoans as the aliens terraformed the planet for their own will. They owed them resistance.

“No,” Ben said, standing. “We go on. We learn and adapt, we can’t give in now.” He turned to Charlie who had stood up and joined the group. “Do it, take their beads and let’s get out of here before any more come back.”

GREGOR PEERED out of his office window at two passing croatoans. The light blue triangular insignia flashes on their shoulders told him they were from the mother ship.

They carried a rigid stretcher with a large electronic device on it. The device was encased in a solid sea-green transparent material, about the size of a coffin with circuitry and wires inside and five circular holes on the side.

He pushed the window open. “What have you got there?”

One at the front of the stretcher glanced at him, clicked a few times in what Gregor thought was a hostile tone.

They carried on toward the warehouses, ignoring him.

He thought the croatoans from the ship were always a lot more dismissive of humans, unlike the ones who had regular ground duties. They grounded ones probably had some mutual respect. Especially the ones from Europe where he’d shown them what he could do. If they wanted to farm humans, fine, but they still needed to know how to treat them to get the best results.

Gregor played the role of sheepdog well; admittedly it was better than being in the flock, or an alien stomach.

A handheld radio crackled on the desk. “Gregor, are you there?”

He swiped it up and depressed the transmit button. “Layla, what did you find?”

“Another attack. Looks like land mines placed in the path. There’s extensive damage to the right hand side of the harvester. It’s worse than before. Mr. Jackson seems to be learning.”

Gregor screwed his face and clenched his fist.

Charlie fucking Jackson—the little wasp, again.

Gregor sat down and let out a long breath. “How bad? Will it be another three week job?”

“It’s croatoan tech, who knows? We need to send over an engineer for a proper evaluation.”

“What about the crew?”

“Two dead—by croatoans hands— and three missing. We’re trying to find them. I’ve lost contact with our patrol. They were tracking a weak signal.”

“Have your squad sweep the area. They’re new, confused. They can’t be far away.”

“Okay. I’ll let them know. Out.”

He grabbed a pair of binoculars from his desk, stormed outside, and headed to an ivy covered brick garage, attached to the exterior left wall. The rusty door’s mechanism screamed as he wrenched it up. It shuddered open. Flecks of loose dark red paint dropped around his boots.

Daylight filled the space inside. On the right, stood a table supporting a bottle of water and a bowl of slop.

In the middle of the room, Marek squinted. He’d fallen over sideways, along with the chair he was secured to with rope. He tried to speak, but only managed to cough.

Gregor gripped Marek’s shirt and the chair, hauling them both upright. “There you go. What have you been doing in here, old friend?”

Marek gulped hard. “Why are you doing this?”

The decision to put Marek in an improvised prison cell wasn’t taken lightly. Gregor feared the croatoans might demand his friend be turned into dinner. He’d been captured by wild humans—no real surprises by whom, Gregor thought. Marek had shown weakness. Gregor was sure the aliens were watching how he handled the situation. He’d tell Marek when the time was right. For now it had to remain as realistic as possible, not even a wink.

It was for their own protection, especially with Augustus sniffing around. That bastard seemed to know everything.

“You look terrible. Can I get you some food? Water?” Gregor asked.

“Why, Gregor?”

Gregor picked up a bottle of water and a tray of the croatoan’s slop, still sealed up tight. “I need to know I can trust you again. You were missing for two days.”

“I’ve told you—”

“I don’t believe in coincidences. We’ve suffered another outage today. Now, open wide.”

Marek spluttered as he tried to drink. Gregor emptied the bottle over Marek’s mouth and face. “Are you hungry?” He peeled off the lid and dug a plastic spoon into the cream colored contents. He pushed the spoon against Marek’s mouth.

Marek twisted away, spitting away the food around his lips. “I’m not eating that shit. Gregor, please.”

He threw the tray to one side. “I want to hear again about your supposed captors. Did they say anything about attacking harvesters?”

“We’ve been through this. They only asked me questions. One was blond haired, late forties or so, the other much younger, perhaps mid-twenties, red head, both had beards and looked like they’ve been living in the forests.”

“They didn’t mention the harvesters? Not once?”

“They wanted to know about the warehouses and the shuttles. What was coming down, what was going up, that kind of thing.”

Gregor walked to the entrance and reached for the door. “I’ll give you another day to think about.”

Marek tried to shout. The screeching hinges drowned out his words. Gregor slammed the door shut and wiped his hands on his jeans. A rumble of thunder rolled in the distance. He looked up at the gathering clouds, wondering if the weather was starting to match his situation.

RAIN FELL STEADILY over the camp. Gregor squelched through mud toward the chocolate factory.

Two croatoan hover-bikes shot over the trees from the distance, coming toward the main square. Layla was on the back of one, ducked behind the croatoan rider, shielding herself. The droning grew louder as they hovered for a moment before descending, joining the other parked bikes in a smart line.

The square was busy with aliens. They seemed to be fascinated with the rain. Whenever it started to fall, they’d leave the barracks and stand in it, looking up, taking off their gloves and waggling their spindly olive fingers.

It was times like this that Gregor thought they were almost child-like. A quick look at the pulse cannon on a shuttle, or the meat processing warehouses would quickly push the idea from his mind.

Layla dismounted and headed toward the chocolate factory, looking uncomfortable in her soaked black trousers and jacket.

Gregor met her by the entrance.

He glanced at the riders who joined the others, marveling at the grim weather.

“They never get bored of it,” he said.

“I do. Let’s get inside,” Layla said with a scowl.

The chocolate factory was deserted apart from Gregor’s man at the monitors, lit up by their glare. Charts, pens and the croatoan’s shoebox-shaped computer devices lay around the large table. The little surveyor bastards were probably out enjoying the rain too.

“What’s that?” Layla said. She pointed to a number of objects in the corner. The odd plastic thing he saw earlier. It’d been hooked into the power source and glowed light green, highlighting an electronic system inside.

Three transparent boxes were stacked next to it.

“I saw them carrying it here. Probably came down with Augustus. His shuttle’s still here.”

“What does he want?”

He let out a grunt. “You’re the anthropologist, you tell me?”