The Assault by Brian Falkner Read Free Book Online

they?”
    “I heard that, genetically, we’re only one percent different from the Pukes,” Wilton said.
    “Yeah, well, genetically, we’re only one percent different from chimpanzees, but you don’t see me climbing trees and eating bananas with my feet,” Hunter said.
    “Yeah,” Wilton said, “but don’t it make you wonder how a species that evolved on another planet, hundreds of light-years away, could share our DNA?”
    “Wilton, a lot of scientists with brains a lot bigger than yours are trying to work that out as we speak,” Chisnall said. “What those scientists are
not
doing is tabbing through the Australian desert, watching your sector.”
    “Are we there yet?” Hunter asked.
    The first enemy aircraft appeared above Mount Morris just as light was beginning to color the eastern sky.
    “Air mobile on the scope,” Price said, long before they could see or hear the craft. “Slow mover.”
    “Cover, cover, cover,” Chisnall said. “Radio silence until Phantom gives us the all clear.”
    He flipped his own camo sheet off the top of his backpack and spread it out quickly on the ground. It immediately picked up the colors and patterns of what was underneath it, and he locked them in before sliding underneath.
    They had been walking on rock that was reddish in some places, a mix of gray and yellow in others. From above, even from a few feet away, he would appear only as a mound of rock.
    There was a viewing hole near each corner of the blanket, just a pinhole. He put his eye to the closest one and waited. He could hear the craft now. It was going to pass close overhead. There was just enough light in the sky for him to see it.
    It was a rotorcraft, the Puke equivalent of a helicopter, although the blades were below and internal, giving the appearance of a large saucer in the sky.
    The sudden appearance of the craft worried him. Were they searching for his team? Did they know about the mission? A rotorcraft in this part of the desert had to be looking for something.
    It moved off slowly to the southwest. Price’s voice came over the comm a few minutes later with the all clear. Chisnall sat up and folded his camo sheet. Around him, five rocky lumps morphed into soldiers.
    “One more klick and we’ll be near the river,” Chisnall said. “We should make that easily before it gets too light. There’sa small depression in the rock below a cliff face. We’ll camp there during the daylight hours. It’ll give us some shadow, and a bit of cover.”
    At the dry riverbed, they treated themselves to a meal of the alien food-in-a-tube and a self-heating drink sachet that tasted like blood.
    Chisnall checked his GPS. They had covered over thirty kilometers. Good going for the first night. His legs and back were aching and he dry-swallowed a painkiller.
    “Wilton, take the first watch,” he said. “Then Price, Hunter, Brogan. Monster, you take the last.”
    Nods and grunts acknowledged the instruction. Chisnall looked around the faces of the team, spending longer on Price than the others. Did he trust her to take watch? Did he trust any of them? Not after what had happened. But there was no choice. Watch had to be kept, and if he left out any of the team, that would just make his suspicions plain.
    The sun was stretching its arms on the eastern horizon, and with the day came the bush flies. Clouds of them, unbothered by waving hands or insect repellent. They went for the eyes, nose, and mouth—anything moist.
    Chisnall watched Monster squeeze a hefty amount of green goo into his mouth from the tube. Flies covered his lips and would occasionally dart inside when he opened his mouth. It didn’t seem to worry Monster. He just kept on chewing, onlystopping to grin at Chisnall with teeth covered in green with tiny black flecks.
    Chisnall gave up trying to eat in the open air and retreated under his camo sheet. Squashing the flies that came under with him, he ate his meal in the cool darkness beneath. He had chosen