Survivors
Chapter Fifty-Six

Joe and Luke landed about four hundred yards from the road.

“Look” said Luke pointing “Can you see them? About two thirds of the way back, walking together.”

Joe made his eyes zoom-in on the area of the column Luke was pointing at. For a moment he recognised nobody, and then he saw them.

“Yes, yes, yes” he said excitedly “I see them!”

“So we fly in really low and really fast. You go first and make…”

“First?” interrupted Joe.

“Yeah they won’t be expecting anything so that will give you a bit more time and a bit more of a chance to get in and out. You’ll have the element of surprise. You grab Mamma and make for that peak over there as quick as you can, then drop down into those trees” said Luke pointing. “Then wait for me to catch up. I won’t be long. After that we’ll change into something that goes fast overland and do a big loop back to Jack and his precious helicopters. Got it?!”

“Got it! Just one thing though, why don’t we just go in shooting?” asked Joe slapping his energy rifle.

“Because if we do that the people will scatter and some of them will get killed and the chances are we won’t replace Darius and Mamma in the crowd. I’d love to kill every Alien there, but we don’t have the time or the firepower to take them on.”

“You know what” said Joe “You’re getting pretty good at this stuff.”

Luke gave a small grin. “Shall we go?” He said.

“Errr just one thing”

“What?”

Joe looked suddenly serious and a little embarrassed. “Give us a hug will ya...”

Luke was taken aback and didn’t move for a moment.

“I mean, after all you are my big brother aren’t you” said Joe.

The two boys flung their arms round each other and hugged, hard. After a few seconds they pulled apart feeling good, but just a little awkward once the moment had passed.

“Right, I’m ready now” said Joe slinging his gun onto his back by the strap “On the count of three then, one, two, three” and with that he was off, leaping high into the air and disappearing into the sky with a few powerful beats of his giant wings. Luke swung his own gun onto his back, counted, one, two, three and then he too followed.

As Luke broke through the canopy of the trees he immediately looked for, and then spotted Joe about one hundred and fifty yards ahead of him. Even at that distance he could tell that Joe was straining every muscle to go as fast as he possibly could whilst also lining himself up so that when he did swoop it would take him right over Big Mamma.

That thought made Luke concentrate on his own target. He found Darius in the crowd and started to adjust his flight to make sure he got his approach just right. He took a gamble and flicked his eyes at the Alien guards who seemed completely oblivious of their approach, but Luke knew that could all change in a split second.

Up ahead Joe began to tuck in his wings and started to accelerate into his dive. He stretched his legs and claws out in front of his body poised to grab Mamma. Every muscle was tensed and every part of his being was focussed on Mamma.

All at once someone in the column of slaves spotted the two huge flying creatures and pointing shouted in abject terror. The chaos, confusion and movement in the line was almost instantaneous. People shifted out of their neat lines, some threw themselves to the floor and others began to run. The unrest in the column alerted and for a second confused the Aliens as they couldn’t immediately sense the reason for the sudden commotion.

Just as Joe stretched out his claws to make the final grab at Mamma someone ran straight into her back. Losing her balance she staggered forward and Joe’s claws snapped thin air. He’d missed! His momentum carried him out and past the other side of the column by a good fifty yards.

“Damn!” shrieked Joe and attempted a tight muscle tearing turn. By now Luke was closing in on Darius. Ironically Darius was a much easier target as he was standing still with his back to Luke staring after the huge bird. Darius obviously didn’t know it was Joe, he just thought it was some kind of strange bird. This time it was Luke’s turn to set his claws. He stretched his legs in front of him and tensed. Milliseconds later he snapped them shut. In a single fluid motion he grabbed Darius under the armpits and was soaring back into the sky in the blinking of an eye.

The Aliens confusion was now over and they opened fire with their lasers. Luke had barely slowed when he had grabbed Darius and was already streaking away flying low and constantly zig sagging. Joe on the other hand had lost all his momentum when he had tried to turn. This made him a much easier target.

Pulses of laser started to whizz dangerously close to Joe. They were so close that he felt his feathers rustle and singe as they hissed past. Joe flew higher and higher. He was trying to dodge the lasers but he was also trying to create enough distance between him and the column to attempt another high speed dive. Only when his lungs began to burn with the strain he was putting on them and the thinness of the air did he decide he was high enough. He dropped his left wing, instantly he turned and began to plummet towards the ground in a barely controlled dive. The earth rushed towards him faster than it ever had before. He began to flex his flight feathers in an attempt to regulate his speed but it had very little effect. Even with all his heightened senses working at the limits of their capability he was replaceing it hard to focus on where Mamma was. He kept losing her in the mass of moving people.

Then all at once he had her, slightly to one side of the column looking straight up at him. He fixed her location and tried again to line her up for a smooth grab.

“Got you!” he thought to himself.

Suddenly his shoulder felt like it had exploded. He dropped his gun, blood and feathers spewed all over him. His dive turned into a fully fledged fall. Tumbling over and over he began to lose consciousness. He’d fallen so many times before when he was learning to fly and every time he’d changed into a giant woodlouse, so now even in this semi-conscious state instinct took over. He went from bird to curled woodlouse in the twinkling of an eye. The balled woodlouse crashed into the ground. Even in this shape the landing (if that’s what you can call it) was harder and more painful than any he had ever experienced. His shoulder exploded with pain again, sending agonising spasms down his arm, across his back and into his brain.

The giant woodlouse bounced like a massive bowling ball. It bounced so hard and high that it missed all the people in the column and went nearly twenty yards off to the left. Despite the pain in his shoulder Joe knew he had to keep moving. He quickly changed again into a giant flea like creature and sprang. He felt rather than saw the Aliens lasers evaporate the ground he had just been standing on. Two good things about being a flea was that the jumps he made were really high and he could do one after another really quickly. The bad thing was that he had virtually no control of where he was going. Each landing and jump was agony because of the strain it put on his wounded shoulder. He could still feel the laser bolts hissing in the air but they felt less frequent and nowhere near as close.

After his tenth jump he couldn’t bear the thought of another as the pain in his shoulder was just too intense. His last jump had brought him into some waist length grass. Rather jump again he used the grass as cover. He frantically thought what animal he could change into that didn’t have any shoulders but would still help him put a lot of distance between himself and the Aliens. What would help him to slip away?

“Snake!” thought Joe and he instantly transformed into a giant python. Slithering silently and speedily through the grass he was less obvious to the Aliens and therefore made much less of a target. In his snake form his tongue flicked in and out sensing the air around him, he could suddenly taste water off to his right. He headed quickly towards it. He was aware of Aliens still moving towards him, but at least they had stopped firing, for now.

Breaking through a small hedgerow he found the water was right below him. A minor change to an anaconda and Joe slipped silently into the river with barely a ripple. Just as the tip of his tail disappeared under the water four Alien hunter killers arrived at the river bank. Beneath the water the cold blooded snake slowly moved through the thick dark silt at the bottom of the river. The water chilled the pain he felt which was a huge relief but he knew he was still losing a lot of blood. His only sensible thought was to get to Luke. Luke would know what to do. Luke would make things better.