Episode One - Baptism by Fire
By Andrew Dylag
Based on an Idea by Andrew Dylag, Mike Gilday, and Joe Zukoski.
The hallways were littered with corpses. I walked through them slowly, taking notice of such things as blood by the gallons covering the once white walls. Here and there a pair of identical bodies laid side by side - results of the aliens’ horrid cloning experiments. From behind me I heard a crunch as a bone was snapped in two.
I spun around quickly, the pistols in my hands coming to bear. It was a colossal alien - seven or eight feet high. It stood there, squatting on its four bloodstreaked purplish legs. Though it didn’t seem to have eyes or ears, I knew it knew I was there. It leapt at me in an impressive jump. Impressive in that I was impressed with the fact that I could be dead fairly soon. Both pistols up, I emptied both clips into the thing before it could hit me. It fell about a foot before me, its momentum gone, stolen by twelve .45 caliber bullets. I turned and nonchalantly holstered the guns.
The next attack was almost as fast and unexpected as the first. I swung the rifle off my back and fired, worked the bolt action, and fired again. Two more aliens were dropped, each with a nice 30-.06 hole through their single eye.
Jumping to the side, I maneuvered quickly around the next attacker, and dodged my way past the following one. Ambush me, would they? I ran into the drama department. Looking around, I found a blade of medium length on the wall. Probably around thirty inches, I thought, and fairly new. Just needed a sharpening … I looked further around. Nothing. Walking out, blade and scabbard strapped to my side, I made my way to the cafeteria. Basically unguarded, though I was attacked by two drone guards on the way in. I got a single shot off, which killed one. The other was too close to risk time reloading. I took him out by slamming the butt of the rifle into his skull.
Finally, the destination had been reached. Walking into the café, I discovered it to be crawling with aliens and clones. I backed out quickly, no one seeing me. Running back around to the exit near lower red, I killed a single clone guarding the doors and went outside.
Once outside, I turned and ran to the loading dock of the café. The lock was rusted and only needed one hit to sever from the chain it held together and then the door swung nicely open. Inside I found a sharpening stone, used for knives. It worked for the sword, though. I left, armed with a decently sharp saber and a 30-.06 that still had a few rounds left. I left through the loading dock and looked up.
There it was. The single largest vessel I have ever seen, bristling with weapons ports and what I assumed to be transports … carrying down an invasion force larger than all of Earth’s forces put together.
They had to be stopped. That was certain. I quickly ducked back into the school and made my way towards the video department.
I ran down the halls, passing the auditorium. I saw something - a flash, out of the corner of my eye - and I spun about to see what it was. It was this spin that probably saved me. Behind me was Jay Byron, one of my best friends, holding a large club of crude construction. “Time to die, clone!” he shouted, swinging down. I dodged, slamming my right fist into his stomach. With my left I grabbed hold of the club and kicked it from his grip as he gasped for breath. The club went scattering across the floor, hit the wall and stopped.
“Jay, get up,” I said, offering my hand. “I’m no more of a clone than you are.”
“Thank God,” he breathed, still winded. “I had thought that I didn’t stand a chance with that huge ship outside.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t get yourself killed. The ones that struck first captured most of the students in my class. That’s over 50.” I looked around the hall. “Come on, we have to get moving again before a patrol hits us. Here, remember how to use a 30-.06 from camp?”
“Just like yesterday.” He thumbed off the safety and worked the bolt action. “Let’s go. Where to?”
“Video department. We need to tell the government.”
We walked down in silence across the deserted corridors. The place was empty. The video department, located in the front of the school, was actually two rooms, with the library in the middle. One was the main editing room, and the other was the production room. Problem was that the editing room, one we didn’t need to use, had cameras in it and those in the other room could see us, and vice versa. “Okay, here’s the plan. We get down to the production room, secure it, and knock out those cameras. Then we get the hell out of there, as soon as we finish the broadcast.”
The hallway was empty. Outside the door to the video production room was a kiosk, showing what was on TV right now. I reached behind it, after a good deal of shoving, and pulled the plug. Ripping it from the back of the TV, I stuck the cord in my pocket. Then I opened the door.
Inside were two decidedly ugly alien guards, along with three clones - all freshmen I didn’t care to know. The loud report of the 30-.06 was followed by a collapse of the lead guard, but the others sprung to their feet and ran towards us. “Back!” I shouted, scrambling out into the hallway.
With a little more room to work, I drew my sword and decapitated the first clone outside the room. His head went sailing and hit the wall nearby. The next freshman went down from a stab to the chest, and Jay’s second shot killed the last one.
The last guard was a different matter. He leapt out fast and furious, and I saw the elite insignia he carried on his uniform. He lunged at me with his own blade, and I parried it, and then riposted back. His parry was hard enough to make my hand sting. I really had to get a better sword. I feinted and he tried to parry, but I quickly pulled my weight back, and then thrust forward. Unfortunately he had recovered enough to make a swipe at my attack, and fouled it. Instead of the picture-perfect pierce I had tried for, I only nicked his hand.
It was then that a mixed blessing befell the battle. Jay had snuck up behind the alien, and tried to butt him over the head with the rifle. The elite didn’t fall for it, though. Using his offhand, he struck Jay upside the head, knocking him out. Luckily, this gave me time to recover and strike. When he opened his mouth to laugh at Jay’s attempt and possible demoralize me, he found about a foot of steel in his way. I pulled my blade out of the back of his head, and dragged Jay into the video room, which I locked from the inside.
The room was a mess of wires, cameras, and electronic equipment, but it always was and had been. Turning to the cameras, I positioned them onto the table at the center of the room, and moved a chair up to it. Sliding over a stand, I looked around until I found some paper, upon which I drew out the layout of the school. Then I added to it, describing in color the alien infestation and the few areas held by non-cloned humans. Then I laid the plans out on the stand and refocused a camera onto them. Jay was getting groggy by then, and so I went and helped him up.
“What hit me?” were his first words. “Oh, my head. Ouch.”
“The alien got you rather hard there. Watch out for those ones, with that insignia. They’re elites and have preternatural senses.” I helped him off the floor. “Come on, we have work to do here.”
Together we entered the side room that housed the Production Unit and the uplink data for the CNN news link. I walked over to the uplink unit and reset the data. Then I entered the code for the access that I was requesting, and went back to the computer in the main room. From that I logged on and tried to connect to the Internet. Nothing. “Jay! Net’s down!” I yelled. “We can’t get this off without Internet access.”
Jay swore. “That’s no good, but at least we have the equipment up and running here.”
Just then I remembered that there was a door behind the production unit that led into one of the off rooms of the media center. And in that room was a door that led straight to the hub center of the library network. From there I could access the main server - it was connected on a direct cable, as opposed to the roundabout route that this one was connected on.
We had to get that message back out. “Jay, see if you can rewire the electric current from the main fuse box over there to some sort of trap on the doorknob. Here, catch!” I threw that severed cable from my pocket to him. “Do what you can, just to buy time. Take the rifle.”
He went over to the doorway. I had leaned the 30-.06 against the wall next to it. “Good luck,” he said, “and take care of yourself. You’re the only hope we have right now.”
Smiling, I opened the door to the media center and turned. “You too.” With that I left.
