Chapter 64
WE WERE OUTNUMBERED a thousand to one—no, more like five thousand to one.
“Hold your fire!” I shouted again.
Our targets were still too close. Yes, Agent Judge’s handpicked team was full of brave warriors and skilled marksmen. However, very few of them had ever actually dealt with the kind of alien firepower they were currently carrying. A blaster gut-shot to the alien creep standing directly in front of you would bore straight through the creature’s cockroach-crusty shell, shoot out his backside, and take out one of the mine’s support beams, bringing down an avalanche that would bury us alive.
This is why blasters, when sold by legitimate dealers, come with warning labels: NOT RECOMMENDED FOR INDOOR USE.
All we could do was wait for Abbadon’s slobbering lackeys to make the first move. And when they did, it wasn’t the move I had been expecting.
They lined up in rows like a high school marching band, did an about-face, and started tromping down the subterranean passageway—away from us.
Were they retreating without firing a single shot? Then I noticed that none of the freakazoids were even carrying weapons. It was like they were a drill team without the toy wooden rifles.
And the weirdness kept getting weirder.
The massed legion of alien thugs, who moved like the synchronized marching machines North Korea likes to put on parade, pivoted their heads in unison and began chanting over their shoulders at us.
“Follow us. He waits below. Follow us. He waits below.”
My new friend, Lieutenant Russell the SEAL, pushed his way to the front of our jumbled pack.
“It’s a trap, Daniel,” he said. “They want to lure you down there so they can ambush you.”
“Maybe. But it’s not an ambush if we’re not surprised. I’m going down after them. The rest of you can stay here if you want, but I need to push on.”
I started marching down the mineshaft, following Abbadon’s followers.
Agent Judge, my friends, and the strike force?
They were maybe one or two steps behind me.