Chapter 28 Zoey

I ran into the building to grab my stuff, but when I came back out, Harb’k had already left for the nest with the other hunters. Perhaps it was for the best. From what I understood of the operations, the hunters needed to burn the nest from the inside out, and it was a dangerous endeavor. The last thing I wanted was for him to be distracted.

When they’d said they wanted to go attack the nest now, they’d meant right away and not tomorrow morning. The hunters believed that this attack on Sanctuary was done in desperation and that the nest was low in both inhabitants and food. They’d insisted on going before the nest had time to hatch more eggs.

Sanctuary’s fighters, which, to my astonishment, were led by Sasha, were worried about being unable to see as the sun set, but Lenny had assured them that there’d be plenty of light. Then, he’d demonstrated by flooding the courtyard with stadium lights.

He and the man named Aaron, who I’d yet to meet, had then proceeded to set up a large screen right in the middle of the courtyard so everyone could watch the attack on the nest. It was all very surreal to see the inhabitants of Sanctuary bring out chairs and make an evening of it, bundled up in their winter coats and blankets. All that was missing was popcorn.

I was down in the courtyard with Lenny. Clark had announced that I was their ambassador shortly after the main group of hunters left but before the humans had. Curtis had bearhugged me so hard I’d turned blue. Mo looked like he already knew. I was surprised to see Mo and Kat all geared up to join the fight. They’d gotten Sanctuary’s fighters updated with their plans before leaving together.

“This is Aaron,” Lenny said, introducing me to the other man. “He’s also a Tech Wizard. I’m glad you’re coming back, Zoey.”

“Nice to meet you, Zoey.”

“Yes! Nice to meet you,” said a voice from Aaron’s laptop.

I perked up. It sounded simultaneously familiar and not.

“That’s Pip,” Aaron said.

“He means their Pip, not our Pip,” Lenny clarified.

“Yeah, I figured Pip and Kan’n wouldn’t agree to come,” I said, “and that’s why Sam isn’t here.”

Aaron shook his head. “Your Pip sounds more difficult than ours.”

“I knew it! I’m the best Pip!”

“Well, you’re supposed to be focusing on the nest right now.”

“I am! I am!” Pip was silent after that.

There were many different feeds on the screen, and I couldn’t find the one that belonged to Harb’k. Some icons on the screen weren’t in English, and I assumed those were names. I did hear his voice occasionally though, and my heart sped up every time I did. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t figure out which of the feeds was his.

“Hey guys,” Pip said suddenly. “We have a problem. I detect an unknown shuttle in the vicinity.”

“Here? Or there?” Aaron asked.

“Here.”

“And you are sure it’s not one of ours?”

“Positive. It’s not on the map. But I can hear it singing to itself. It’s the most tone-deaf shuttle I’ve ever heard,” Pip griped. “If it can’t even hit those notes, how could it hit a flyer?”

“Do you think it knows you’re here cloaked?”

“I don’t think so. If it does, it hasn’t said anything. It just keeps humming.”

“Do you detect anything else strange happening here?”

“There’s movement on the roof. Let me go see.” There was a pause. “Oh, they’re just changing guards.”

“Harb’k mentioned being shot at by a mystery shuttle the other day too,” Lenny said.

I perked up at his name.

“But he wasn’t able to give us much information. He was a little… distracted… at the time.”

I knew by the way Lenny avoided looking in my direction the reason for Harb’k’s distraction. I felt like crap for being too chickenshit to tell him the truth.

Heather was the only one who knew, since she’d seen the original report from when I’d been in the medical unit at the lab. She’d tried to hide that look of pity that everyone got when they found out, but I saw it anyway. Or maybe I’d imagined it. I didn’t know. I was so sensitive when it came to this subject that I couldn’t tell.

“We’ll keep an eye out for anything odd,” Aaron said “But for now, Pip, just focus on the nest. I think they’re ready to go in.”

“Hey, it’s our guys!” someone shouted, pointing to the video that showed the fighters from Sanctuary.

It took just under two hours for them to clear the place out. With the help of exploratory drones and Mountain Pip, Lenny and Aaron guided the hunters through as they systematically burned the nest from the inside out. As they did, any scourge trying to flee the nest was caught and dispatched by the humans waiting outside. There were even humans in shuttles shooting down any that tried to escape by air. There was nowhere to run.

My first glimpse of the queen had me gasping. The bitch was huge, a bloated monstrosity that had grown so big that it could no longer use its legs and had to rely on scuttlers to feed it. She was surrounded by hundreds of wet, shiny eggs. I wanted to throw up. The hunters surrounded it, aiming their streams of fire at it, and her shrieks filled the room.

Those still watching the fight broke out in applause. Clark, who’d been watching behind me, was grinning. I wondered how long it had been since these people had something to celebrate. I hoped it meant Clark would have an easier time convincing his people to continue working with hunter-friendly groups. I was sure there’d still be some people who were staunchly against working with aliens, but this was a good start.

“Now we just have to wait for our fighters to clean up and head back.” Lenny turned to me. “You ready to go?” He eyed my bag. “Let me get that loaded up for you.

“Thank you.” I handed him my duffel. “I need to go say bye to my friend. I’ll be right back.”

Still pumped from witnessing our win, I ran into the main building and to the room on the third floor where Riley and I had been staying. I found her on the bed.

“Riley! Did you see? They fucked up the nest real…” I trailed off because Riley looked terrified. “What’s wrong?”

“Ah. Why, if it isn’t our little ambassador?” The voice behind me had me whipping around.

Gabe stood there, a handgun trained on me.

“There’s no point in screaming. Sanctuary’s guards belong to me. They’re all in on this.” He gestured to the door. “Open it. We’re all going to take a little walk up to the roof.”

After too many floors of listening to him complain about Clark and Sasha getting soft and falling victim to alien brainwashing, we were on the roof. And just as Gabe had said, the guards here were expecting us. So was the trade advisor. The traitor!

They ushered us to a spot marked with neon green tape. It only took a few steps before a Xarc’n shuttle appeared in front of us, looking worse for wear. The tone-deaf shuttle! Since it didn’t appear until I was this close, it must have been cloaked!

The door slid open, and Corey stood in the opening, looking smug.

“I don’t know how the fuck you two got to so many of the charging points, but you left one. That was enough to get us to the shuttle. Looks like I win.” He turned to Gabe. “We’ll meet you and your men at the rendezvous point.” He pointed to the woman behind me. “Not her. She barred trade with my group.”

“That was all Clark,” the trade advisor insisted. “I said we needed you guys. I insisted we keep our agreement.”

Corey considered it. “Fine, whatever.”

Gabe shoved Riley and me into the shuttle. If and when I got back to Sanctuary, I was going to apologize to Sasha for suspecting him when Gabe had been the problem all along.

“Shuttle,” I said. “You don’t have to follow his instructions.”

“It’s not gonna work, but good try,” Corey said. “This one is not one of them smart ones. This one does what it’s told. And so will you.” He aimed a gun at me. “You’re going to sit down like a good little bitch until we get to where we’re going.”

I considered for a second if I could wrestle the blaster from him. But the safety was off, and it might end up shooting me or Riley during the altercation. What I really wanted to do was strangle him for everything he’d put me through.

Maybe I’d be able to catch him off guard. But it seemed like as soon as we lifted off, we were landing again, and he marched us out into a warehouse where his friends were waiting.

There was a man I’d never seen before, and he was giving off big boss energy. He wore fatigues with the letters NEM embroidered on the front.

Shit. New Earth Militia!

Boss Man approached us, arms crossed. “Help the others pack everything into the shuttle,” he ordered, and Corey hopped to it, leaving through the side door.

“Now,” Boss Man said, looking at me. “You are going to tell me everything you know about this camp. We know the basics, so I’ll know if you’re lying. When you were there, did you see any machinery that might be able to detect a cloaked shuttle?”

“The other shuttles, I guess.” It was a generic answer anyone would give.

“No. We removed the tracking on our shuttle so that they couldn’t detect us. There must be something else.”

“There was the weird thing that looked like a stasis pod from a bad sci-fi movie.”

He frowned. “That’s for cleaning. “

“Oh. Like to clean clothes?” I asked, playing stupid.

“No, it’s how the hunters clean themselves.”

“Oh. They had showers there. So that was nice.” I hope he bought the dumb blonde act.

“Anything else?”

“We watched The Notebook on Friday. And we ate something that resembled tacos on Tuesday.”

He rubbed his temples like he couldn't believe the drivel he was hearing. He dug into his pocket and then tossed a mini notebook and pen at me. “Draw the layout of their base.”

I drew the intersection, and then I added the farmhouse, the barn, and the plaza in roughly the shape that it would be if seen from the sky. Their shuttle would have seen at least this much. “Something like that,” I said, handing it back to him.

He nodded, then asked what each part was.

“Here is the grocery store,” I said. “And this is a pharmacy, and over here is the fast food place. And over here…”

He stopped me before I could rattle off any more useless information. They would’ve seen all this from the air with their shuttle.

“Do you know how many of those aliens live there? How many humans?”

“Well, everyone was out dealing with the scary nest, so I don’t know.”

He pressed his lips in a thin line. “I need to get some fresh air. Stay in here, and don’t run off. There are flyers outside. And I won’t waste any bullets saving you.” Then he stomped out, frustrated at not getting anything useful out of me.

Ha! Kidnapper: 0. Dumb Broad Act: 1.

As he entered the back room, Riley cracked a smile and gave me a thumbs-up. We both shuffled over to the side door Corey hadn’t gone out of. If we were lucky, it wouldn’t be locked. I was willing to brave the flyers to get out of here. Riley seemed to have the same idea.

We’d just reached the door when, suddenly, Corey and one of his friends burst in from the side door with panicked looks.

“Aliens!” yelled the asshole. “There’s an alien shuttle landing just behind the other building.”

Boss Man stepped out from the back room, and all three looked our way.

“Hey! Get back here,” Corey shouted.

Riley and I both decided right then and there to run.