Critical Path

But perhaps this other group would have stocks if they had a large alien population. The more Denver searched the sky and panned his scopes, the more narrow, swirling columns of smoke he spotted.

The enemy, the pods… Dad! There must be a settlement of some kind over there.

“I see it,” Denver said to Gregor. “Smoke columns. About twenty of them. We should be able to get there within the hour if we move now… shit, wait, what’s that?”

“Hunter,” Venrick said as she stepped back away from the ridge and crouched low to the ground. Gregor and Denver instinctively followed.

Denver recognized this type: it looked similar to the one that had hunted them in Manhattan and followed them to the town hall.

For a brief moment he thought it was the same one, but this one wasn’t wounded and was visibly smaller and wearing an adapted set of army fatigues.

It stepped out of the trees on the far side of the battleground and made its way through the hundreds of bodies, always looking, searching through its visor. It carried a large black rifle very similar to the one Denver carried.

“How many of them patrol this area?” Denver asked Venrick in hushed tones from his prone position.

The alien clicked nonsense in return and blinked a look of confusion.

Holding up his hands and indicating to one finger and then the hunter, he asked again. “More than one?”

“Don’t know. I… stayed not long.”

“Great, so we could be surrounded and we wouldn’t even know until it’s too late. What did I say about trusting these damned things?” Gregor said, getting an intense look from Venrick in response.

“Keep your damned voice down,” Denver whispered. “Here’s the plan. I’ll take out this one; you two flank round through the trees, see if you can spot any other movement. They don’t look like they’re expecting anything by being so out in the open; you’ll likely get the drop on them.”

“Why me?” Gregor said. “You love these aliens so much, you go with it.”

“Her,” Denver said and realized how ridiculous it was that he was defending an alien to Gregor. Clearly the ex-crime lord’s brain wasn’t particularly sharp today.

Denver offered him the perfect opportunity to deal with Venrick.

“Just go with her and deal with the situation in your usual way,” Denver said, giving the other man an obvious wink, knowing the alien wouldn’t likely pick up on it.

Feigning comprehension, Gregor gave Denver a mock salute as he sneered with understanding. “Right you are. I’ll meet you back with the others once we’ve swept round and taken a look. Don’t do anything stupid with that one down there… or do, I don’t really care.”

“I hope you fall into a trap,” Denver said as Gregor and Venrik, still crouching, made their way down the other side of the hill and headed off into the eastern side of the trees.

Gregor flipped him the bird before he disappeared into the forest.

A part of Denver hoped that both of them would kill each other and save him the trouble.

He took out the adapted communicator from his jacket pocket. Mike had done a great job of altering the encryption on these devices.

They had to be careful using the alien tech, as they didn’t want to give away their communications to any croatoans who might be listening in, especially with those from the south posing a threat still.

Although the northern territory farms were devoid of aliens, most of them now dead on the field, the southern farms and those on other continents were still just getting the news of everything that had happened over the last month and were fighting with the aliens in their own way.

Layla helped forward messages to those farms that came online using the inter-facility messaging system that Augustus used from the mother ship. Without the central server, it had taken weeks to hack the system to work on a peer-to-peer basis, but every day they reached more and more facilities, and day by day the humans turned on the aliens, reclaiming the planet once more.

Switching the communicator on with a small thumb button inset into the alien polymer, he brought it up to his ear. “Layla, this is Den. You hear me?”

A few seconds passed, and with zero static, Layla’s voice came to him. “I hear you loud and clear, Den. What’s going on? You find anything?”

Denver filled her in on the situation.

“I’ll bring back a gift. Hold tight, I’ll be there shortly.”

He didn’t expand on it as he clicked the communicator off. Edging forward on his elbows and sighting through the scope, he watched the alien continue to stalk through the field. Occasionally it got distracted by something on a body and stopped to investigate.

This was not the behavior of a trained and lethal hunter.

Bracing the rifle against his shoulder and using a molehill to support the barrel, he waited for the alien to stop and stoop once more before pulling the trigger.

The shot caught the alien in the knee, bending its leg backwards and making it sprawl forward.

It dropped its rifle and clutched its bleeding leg.