The Token by Kevin Bird (the little red hen ebook .TXT) 📖

through everyone’s mind. We knew what our comrades were doing and how they were paying for their attempts to slow down those who would kill us all. We rejoiced in their bravery and mourned their sacrifice. The younger family members were close to panic sensing all that was happening. They could not truly understand it. The old among us stayed with them at the rear giving assurance as best we could.
Our group had moved further into the tunnels, and lower down the mountain into areas that had not been frequented within our memories. Here we hoped to be safe from discovery; and if finally found, this would be the place of our last stand. There would be no further running this day.
Another stab of pain ran through us and we knew one more of our number had died for us all. We had left others along our path to worry the two-legs as they traveled through our dark passages. They would give their lives in the hope of taking some of the invaders with them as others had before. The rest of us waited for what might come; prepared to fight to the death for the family and the life we did not want to lose. One way or another we would be free.

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Drake’s men were beginning to get into a kind of routine. Whether these creatures were intelligent or not, they were unable to stand against the artificial strength created by Marshall’s equipment and Drake’s leadership. As they walked down the tunnels with three men abreast, they were rarely surprised now. Some of the creatures lying in wait were even carrying within them a tag so that Drake, carrying the tracking device, could tell his men where they could shoot before the animal had even showed itself. Other times when one sprung from the shadows it would cut through the many beams of light and be immediately shot by five or six weapons at once. Also, because of the size of the tunnel, his men had an easier time moving strategically than did the creatures; the ceiling reduced the height they could jump thus mitigating their main mode of attack. The men in the back would set up trip mines for the times a creature would try to attack them in the rear; now they could not be surprised from that direction. Drake and his men felt good about their progress. He had contacted Taren and they were coordinating their efforts and duplicating each other’s successful tactics. Between them they had one death and only three injuries with none of those being serious, while they confirmed eighteen of the creatures killed. Things were going well.

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Down the hill, below Drake’s ship, a crowd had gathered. Jacob, his family and many of the farmers with their families too, had come to Jacob’s farm to see how this day would turn out. Jacob wasn’t surprised when they had all shown up even though there hadn’t been any plans to do so. Why wouldn’t everyone want to make sure that this whole terror came to an end? Just like him they’d all lost animals and Gamik had actually lost a family member. If Drake and his men were successful in wiping out the things that had caused all this trouble, then there would be reason to celebrate.
The farmers were looking up the hill, as someone had seen a flash way up high, and a second later all of them heard a booming noise. No one knew whether this was a good sign or not though. Jacob hugged Bella even tighter, and as the thought of celebrating came into his head he realized that there would be no celebrating for the two of them. They would be losing their daughter whatever happened in the caves today. Whether Drake failed or succeeded, Jacob would still not have enough to fulfill his Token, and no one else could help him since many of them might be short now, too. Even if he wasn’t a non-tech he couldn’t fight the Collectors with any expectations of anything good coming of it. If he tried they might shoot him before still taking Bettine. No matter how hard it was to accept, he knew he couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t risk leaving Bella to grieve for not only their daughter but him, too. His girl, little Bettine, would be gone from him, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Suddenly a thought came to him that seemed so obvious he was shocked he hadn’t even considered it until now. It was a stretch but he thought it might work in his favor. He turned to look into his wife’s eyes, but decided he couldn’t tell her his idea right now. He had to spend some time thinking it out to make sure he felt it would have a chance of working before he gave her any hope. The tough thing was he really wouldn’t know if it would work or not until the Collectors were actually here.


Eighteen


Drake and his men had met up with Taren’s team. As they had moved downhill within the caves their routes had joined and now they all felt somewhat invincible. There had been no more injuries and yet they had been continually harassed over the last two hours. The total count of creatures killed was over thirty, and by their earlier estimates they expected only another thirty or so remained. The only doubt on the numbers was that Drake didn’t know how many of the Hoppers had not been out attacking the blues and greens over the last two nights. He assumed that like any group of animals, especially intelligent ones like these, they would help take care of their old, young, and injured who would have been left behind while the others hunted. He was not concerned because however many there were, they would be no threat to him or his men once the healthy ones had been destroyed.
“I read at least three signals, Captain. About twenty meters ahead.” Taren was beside him with a tracking machine in his hands. “They’re clustered together. There may be more with them that are untagged, I can’t tell.” He pointed down a decline in the tunnel.
“Cale, throw a couple of frags down there.” Drake couldn’t see any reason to risk anyone if there were easier ways to deal with their enemy.
Cale stepped forward and threw the two frag grenades quickly one after another into the darkness ahead then shouted, “Everyone down, now!”
For a second they could hear the grenades bouncing down the rocky floor. Even with his helmet sealed Drake heard the blast and felt the thud of the impact rushing through the ground into his chest. They all stood up ready for anything, but all their flashlights could make out was dust in the beams of light. As it settled they moved cautiously forward. Soon their flashlight beams lit the passage again, and they could see a wide area of the floor and tunnel walls covered in gore and pieces of Hoppers. There was no way to tell how many there had been, but they were no threat now.
“Captain, the signals have stopped and I don’t read anymore in any direction,” said Taren.
“Let’s keep it careful now men. We just lost one advantage so I don’t want any surprises. We’re too close to finishing this to mess up now.” Drake knew there were at least another thirty able bodied creatures and an unknown number of less effective ones that would still need to be dealt with.
They moved forward slower now. Aware that there were no more tracker tags to give them a warning; stealth had suddenly become more significant. The scary thing was this was unknown territory for Drake and his men, and no matter how tough they were they could be surprised at every turn of the tunnel. And they were!

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We had seen the strong light of day at the end of the tunnel and knew we could go no further now. Almost half our remaining number had been lost and now we were trapped in our own home. We knew from the images and vibrations how far the two-legs were progressing and how our comrades were being sacrificed. Sadly, it did not look like we would ultimately benefit from their efforts. As a last hope we all shared our thoughts and made a hard decision. The remaining strong ones among us would head back up the tunnels toward those who would kill us. Leaving a few of us behind here and there had slowed the two-legs but had obviously not been successful in stopping them. We needed to try something different.
Leaving only a small handful of last ditch defenders, the rest said farewells to us and headed off. This time we had decided to attack in larger numbers instead of one or two at a time. We chose to split ourselves apart so we could send some to the rear of where our enemy was and in the process attack from two directions at once. We hoped that some of us would get to return the gift of death the two-legs had brought into our home.

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Drake and his men had passed the second highest cave entrance and were heading down to the lowest and last. His expectations of success were high though he knew better than to let his guard down. His men could sense they were nearing the end of their adventure and were excited and eager. It was all he could do to keep them from running ahead like children. Now was not the time to change the tactics that had allowed them this far with relative safety.
“Any tracker signals?” he asked Taren.
“No Captain. Still nothing.”
From ahead Drake saw his men stop and then heard a nervous cry, “I hear something, Captain. Coming this way. Fast!”
Drake shouted, “Hold your positions!”
Before he could move to the front to see what was going on, he heard it too. A noise he could not place at all. The only thing that came to mind was the sound of a ground vehicle driving through brush and the thorns and twigs scraping along the side panels. Suddenly he was afraid. Over his intercom he heard a scream followed by shots. Someone on the frontline had seen something and was already firing. From his position Drake couldn’t see, as there was a bend in the tunnel. As he rushed forward he could see a mass of shapes in the beams from the flashlights. He immediately realized the noise he’d heard was from so many creatures forcing their way down the tunnel packed together and scraping the walls. Then all hell broke loose.
He couldn’t make out any individual animal. A wall of bodies came flying out of the darkness and into the full artificial light. Though he knew they would be all but blinded by it he realized that they really didn’t need to be able to see. In these tight quarters his men were easy targets with so many creatures leaping in amongst them all at once. He turned as he saw flashes of gunfire in his peripheral view. The creatures were attacking from behind too. They must have access to side tunnels he and his men had passed without seeing.
His headset became a cacophony of screams and gunfire. The initial wave of creatures had easily broken over the men at the front of his group. He knew the shots fired must have hit home and killed some of the black shapes but clearly not enough to stop or slow them. This tactic of mass attack was working. There was no order to his defense; it was almost every