Blue Through the Grey

Guardians At The Gate

“Sasha, Hannah. We have intel on a school nearby. Think you guys can check it out?.” Andrea says through the walkie-talkie.
“Yeah,” Sasha replies. “We’ll see what we can do.”
Rain sprayed down from the heavens, dark clouds grind together, making the most beautiful sounds. The wipers swish back and forth, nothing but the empty road ahead of us.
“A school would be a perfect outpost. We could have survivors there, an actual medical wing. A gathering place for everyone.” Sasha smiles, she’s cooking up something in her head.
We drive back a long winding road that leads back into the woods, much like our community. Sasha slams on the breaks. Surrounding the school is infected, they’re acting like a gate.
“That must be an alien hive,” I say. “The infected are protecting it.”
“God damn. There goes the plan.” She throws her head down on the steering wheel and sighs.
“No. We can still take this place. Let’s head back and talk it over with Andrea.”

“Look, this seems like a lot of work...But if we gather the communities together, we can infiltrate.” Andrea takes a seat at the end of a long grey table.
“But we don’t even know how many aliens are in there,” Reilly says.
“That’s why I’m giving you guys these Agent watches. They can sync to your eyes to highlight the enemies, your ears for more sensitive hearing and you can hear the other agents talking. It’s better for stealth. The watches can also heal any wound that’s not life threatening.”
“Where’d this stuff even come from?” Jennifer asks.
“A friendly alien colony,” Andrea replies. “The watch is an Intelligent System Analytic Computer. Also known as ISAC. He’ll accompany you, highlight targets, heal you. He’s a big help to the team.”
“Alright. I say we head out tonight,” Sasha says.

Black tank-top, tight jeans, combat boots, the agent watch strapped to my right wrist, I feel like I’m part of the military or something. I click on the watch and it glows a dark orange color. ISAC turns on and says hello in a cheery British accent. The time is now, we grab our guns, store our magazines in the compartments on our Exo’s and head out. Andrea is tagging along, which is not the best idea since she’s the leader of our colony. No driving, this time, just the gliding of our exo’s through a windless night. After gliding for about thirty minutes, we reach our destination. We split into teams. Sasha, Jenn, and Reilly are with me, we’re taking the top floor. We run down the long dirt road and wait in the weeds just outside of the school area.
“Scanning,” ISAC says. “Ten hostiles detected on the second floor.” I look up and see red blocks that are in the shape of humans walking through the school. I guess those are the enemies.
“Alright. On my count.” Reilly says.
3...2...1...We leap into the air and crash through the windows. There goes all silence. As soon as we hit the floor, our guns are out and three aliens are dead. The silencers on our weapons sure do work because even with the extra hearing the watch gave us, the gunfire was silent.
“Warning, hostiles incoming,” ISAC says.
They show up behind us, blasting lasers. I feel the spray of blood and I instantly know something has gone terribly wrong. Reilly falls to the floor, his body lifeless. Blood liters the wall behind him. Jennifer screams and drops beside him, picking him up off the red stained tiles. She cries, not for her, but for the life lost. She looks at me and her eyes tell me what to do. We open fire on the aliens while Jennifer consoles the body that was once Reilly. I pull out the magazine, load another, and continue to fire. The ten hostiles turn into 5, then to 0.

“He’s gone,” Jennifer says as the lean down, resting my hand on her shoulder. “They killed him.”
“It’s time to go,” I say to her.
“He’s dead.” She’s in shock.
“Even if you end up killing us here.” A man says...no, an alien says. “You’ll die in the war.”
“What war?” Sasha asks, pointing her gun at him.
“The great war. We’ve been planning since the beginning. The war that’ll wipe your kind off the planet for good.”
“Fucker!” Jennifer screams, tossing me out of the way. She shoots him just as he raises his gun and shoots her.
Her body falls into my arms. Her head thrusts back and blood pours from her mouth. I hold her in my arms, looking at her body, so young, so fragile. She came into this battle a fighter and that’s how she’s leaving. I lay her body next to Reilly’s and we run down the hall, shooting anyone that comes in our path. We eventually meet up with Jessica, Melanie, and Noah. They look at our blood stained clothes and see that we’re missing two people...two important people. Melanie looks at Jessica and collapses in her arms.
“Are they…?” Noah asks.
I gulp hard and choke back tears. “Yeah...they’re gone.”
“We cleared the bottom floor, the others are in the basement.”
“One of the aliens said something about a war coming…” Sasha says.
“The great war,” Noah replies. “They had plans drawn up in a classroom down here.”

A few minutes pass and we all meet up, documenting our findings and our...losses. We walk out with fewer than when we came in. A couple men carry the fallen and a few others stay behind to burn the dead aliens. We lost important people today...now they’re guardians at the gate.