Harry and the Four Musketeers walked over the battleground. He had a clock ticking in his head, and he was ready for what was to come. He asked the boys to set up around where the gate should open. He gave them scopes with built-in range and direction tuning, a personal bee, and an armored vest and helmet with radio in case a xeno actually got close to them.
He did not give them guns because he didn’t quite trust them to not shoot him in the back.
He walked over escape plans, hiding places, and where they should run in case of trouble. The ultimate destination should be his car. It would take them out of the combat zone and protect them until the police or more contractors arrived.
He sent them home after they were done. He asked them to be ready to come back in a few hours. He didn’t know if they would, but it was okay if they didn’t.
He dropped eight or nine hives around the open area he planned for the gate to open in. Once the mana got high enough, the hives would activate and start sending bees to help him out.
He summoned a beetle drone and a flip top on a cart. He checked to see if the toggle worked. The round cover flipped up from its flat resting position. He hooked the beetle to the cart and gave it instructions for the coming fight. He pushed the lid back down.
He found an all night place to grab something to eat. He took that back to his car, ate, then settled in for a nap. If he did crossover to the other side of the gate, there was no telling how long he would be fighting.
And it was better to sleep than worry about all the things that could go wrong. They didn’t really know if they were right about the gate being thrown over from the other planet.
If they were right, Box and his fellow contractors would have to do something about it before the second gate opened.
Would they have another star whale to open a gate for when they opened the second gate?
He slept strapped into his car seat. No one could see him to bother him, and the car was safe against anyone trying to break in.
“Wake up, Harry,” said Nick. “It’s almost time.”
“Five more minutes, Mom,” said Harry. “I’ll catch the bus this time for sure.”
“WAKE UP! MONSTERS ON THE LOOSE!,” Nick screamed into his head.
“Calm down,” said Harry, snapping upright against the seat belt. “I’m ready.”
He got out of the car and pulled on armor. The bees had taken cover everywhere. Anything that came out of the gate would run into strings of liquid fire ripping through the air. He placed his helmet on his head and turned on the scanner and reticle functions. The pistol went into his holster. He flipped through high speed kinetic weapons for something he could use in this situation.
“A lot of these weapons will burn through their ammunition in a matter of seconds,” said Nick.
“I know,” said Harry. “I just don’t think the single shot weapons I have will do a lot. I also don’t want to rely on the bees if we encounter something that is energy beam proof.”
“I suggest the Xl-067,” said Nick. “It holds a thousand rounds of ammunition that should knock any man-sized target down. You can keep the rifle and pistol for the use of specialized attacks.”
“All right,” said Harry. “The rate of fire that high?”
“I would suggest a few magazines of loaded ammunition to go with it,” said Nick.
“I’m going,” said the contractor. A few touches of his mental menu dropped a few boxes next to him. “Let’s get set up. If we’re right, we can point at other worlds as designated targets, maybe push the xenos out of the galaxy.”
“It will still be a long war which we might lose just from the lack of resources,” said Nick.
“We’re not going to lose this,” said Harry. “The bees and I will make sure of that.”
The mana scanner ticked to attract his attention. He nodded as he bent down and opened the shipping boxes. He frowned at the boxes of ammunition. They seemed too small to hold a thousand rounds.
Harry loaded the weapon and charged it. He placed the loaded boxes bullets in pockets on his vest. He didn’t see the kids. Maybe they couldn’t make it.
It was okay. He was ready to deal with anything the world had to throw at him.
“All right,” said the crackling in his radio. “I got a reading at two fifty. Anybody
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else?”
“I have one,” said another voice. “It looks like it’s in the alley next to the chicken place.”
Harry smiled. The guys hadn’t let him down.
“I see it,” said a third. “It’s by LeRoi. Almost directly under him.”
“Bee’s hot,” said LeRoi. “I got it. I’m ready to back off if something starts trying to climb the walls.”
“Some of the xenos are good jumpers,” said Harry. “I’m sending in the boys to do overwatch. If you have to back off LeRoi, back off under cover.”
“I got you,” said LeRoi. Harry focused on him. The wheelman had a row of bottles on the rampart where he looked down on the alley. “The thing isn’t fully open yet.”
“If we have to go, come towards me,” said Marques. “I got Mister Jordan’s
bumblebee car on my right.”
Harry jogged toward the gate. His bees ripped by through the air. They knew what their job was, and how to do it. A counter just above the points counter which had frozen at ten nines told him how many agents he had in the field. He didn’t know if that included the bees on the other planets. He hoped they were doing okay.
At least he would have a chance to hook up with some of them if his plan worked.
The beetle pulled the cart behind him as fast as a walking dog. He just had to hold the xenos in the alley until he could activate the lid. Then the rest would be discouraging this planet’s monsters from trying this again.
He doubted the grunts had the brains to be discouraged.
The gate swirled to life. Things started coming out. They had to get out of the alley to make the rest of the plan work.
“Fire in the hole,” LeRoi shouted. He lit a makeshift fuse tucked in the first bottle in the line and dropped it off the edge of the building. It broke open when it hit the ground and spewed burning gas everywhere.
Harry wished he hadn’t done that. He went through the first thousand rounds from his rifle in a spray of streaks buzzing through the air. He sawed through the xenos as they tried to charge through the fire. He nodded as he chopped them to pieces.
Harry dropped the empty box out as the bees began to fire into the gate. He fitted another thousand rounds in the well of the weapon and charged it. He sprayed into the gate, moving the barrel back and forth like spraying a water hose. He needed something with a bigger kick.
He could worry about that in a minute. He needed to get across the gate and take care of his business before worrying about switching weapons in the middle of a firefight. The bees began zipping into the gate in three bee squads. He didn’t know where they picked that up, but he was glad they were concentrating their fire on targets as they went.
He lined the beetle up with the gate. He stepped on it before using the last of his ammunition. He changed boxes again as the beetle carried him into the gate. He pressed the footswitch on the lid as he and the beetle went across. The lid flipped up behind him to stop xenos in transit from leaving the other side.
He hoped his mad scheme worked.
He hopped off the beetle and cut the line holding it to the lid. He was surrounded by grunts. None of them looked happy at what he had done. The bees strafed the crowd, forcing them to run for cover.
He looked down at the ground. There was a mark eaten into the hard soil. He stepped away, letting the buzzsaw cut a path for him to take off the mark. A group of bees burned the mark away. The gate closed on his side with a snap.
“We’re cut off and surrounded, Harry,” said Nick. “You’re going to die here.”
“I got this,” said Harry. “Well, the bees have got this.”
The drones in question popped small xenos almost instantly, punched through the middle ranged aliens, and surrounded the bigger creatures and combined firepower until they had cut the alien in question into pieces.
Harry placed the rifle on the beetle and summoned a launcher and grenade. He loaded the weapon and blasted a clump of xenos into pieces. He reloaded and sent another few aliens into the air.
“Where do you think they will be to try to get to Earth from here on their next
attempt?,” asked Harry. He threw a couple of hives down to start building his forces.
“I don’t know,” said Nick. “Other planets were also hit the same as Earth. Reports are coming in from the involved agents. So it’s not just Earth, they still go after any planet they can reach from here.”
“Have you got a spot for the next marker in line?,” asked Harry. He fired the launcher at a giant with too many arms and one eye. “We can go there and shut things down.”
“I don’t have a line to put up,” said Nick. “Generally west is what I presumed.”
“I have no idea which way that is,” said Harry. “The bees have bought us some time. I guess I need to work on a vehicle to get us over to where the other outpost is.”
“I don’t think your car will do a lot of good here,” said Nick.
“There are other options,” said Harry. “I would love to fly, but I think I would be
crashed by the flying things up there before I got anywhere.”
“So what do you propose to do about this?,” asked Nick. “It’s not like we can go back home again.”
“We don’t have to go home,” said Harry. “We just need to increase the amount of bees on the planet.”
“So we’re going to fight a whole planet of the enemy,” said Nick. “I can’t wait to see how this plays out.”
“Don’t be such a worry wart,” said Harry. “The first thing I need to do is clear some of this bad air away. I don’t know what’s going on with this but I need to start with life support.”
He summoned a pod like the one he had needed on the star whale. He threw it down next to his beetle and immediately felt better. The charge wouldn’t last long, but he didn’t need it to.
He selected a suit and helmet for protection for when the pod ran out of its charge. He pushed the button and was sealed in. He nodded, but he would have to split the skin if he wanted to use the pistol or knife.
He threw two hives down and let them start working. The ones on the other side of the gate wouldn’t come back online unless another gate opened nearby, or a xeno happened to run by. Here he had a target rich environment and his bees couldn’t kill the monsters fast enough.
It was time to help them out.
Harry fired a couple more rounds from the launcher as he walked forward to a clear spot. He placed a particle thrower the size of a baby elephant on the beetle. He urged it forward. The cannon fire ripped through the enemy like the whip it resembled.
The contractor looked at his choices for vehicles. He needed something that could stay close to the ground, and be armed to the teeth. He needed a fast tank in his opinion. And the bottom of it had to be able to skirt the formations of stone stabbing toward the sky.
He didn’t like the fact that he couldn’t fly but small star whales and the like patrolled far above. If he took the fight to them, he needed more than what he had now.
He needed a super bee.