White Sands by Nicholas Sansbury Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

sourly.
    Michael couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. A drop welled up in the corner of his right eye. He brushed it away before anyone could see. Jeff was right. What should have been one of the best days of his young life had turned out to be a nightmare. And as the vague shapes of thespaceport crept into view Michael knew the nightmare had only begun.

CHAPTER 8
    O AKLEY parked their truck behind an abandoned building a quarter mile from the NTC spaceport. Several strange orbs glowed blue in the darkness, faintly illuminating the crumbling base.
    Michael took another shot of morphine and crawled to the top of a mound of dirt where Connor and Oakley were scouting out the base. He’d left Jeff and David with Nelson, who was still perched in the other Humvee’s gun nest watching their six.
    “What are those . . .” Michael couldn’t find the words to describe the large blue objects.
    “Shhh,” Oakley replied.
    Michael opened his mouth to respond just as the morphine kicked in. A current of numbness rushed through his body. He let his chin rest on the dirt and stared at the orbs. The dazzling blue light swam across his vision.
    “What the hell is that?” Connor asked, his voice still muffled by his breathing apparatus.
    Oakley didn’t respond. He scooted closer to the soldier and followed the man’s finger past the air traffic control tower and to a cluster of hangars on the eastern edge of the spaceport.
    “Those buildings are the closest access to the tunnels that I’m aware of,” Oakley said.
    “But what about those ball things ?” Connor replied.
    Oakley shrugged. “They don’t seem to be moving. What other choice do we have?”
    For several minutes they watched in silence, the wind whipping against them. Without his helmet, Michael was essentially blind. If it weren’t for the mysterious glowing balls, his vision would be limited to the intermittent moonlight.
    Near the aviation tower, several silhouettes crept past the glowing spheres. Michael squinted, trying desperately to get a better look as the outlines moved throughout the spaceport. Three luminous creatures stalked them from behind.
    “What the hell . . .” Oakley said, pausing. “Are those people?”
    “What’s that following them?” Connor asked quietly.
    The answer came in the sound of automatic gunfire. Blue beams from plasma rifles cut through the night. The human shapes began to move swiftly. Michael watched them retreat into one of the hangars, the blue creatures just behind them.
    “What the fuck are those things?” Connor shouted.
    Oakley smacked him on the helmet. “Keep it down, man.”
    Michael didn’t need the night vision or advanced optics of his helmet to see what was chasing the group. The thought was still incredible to him, but he knew what the creatures were.
    Aliens.
    Desperate screams broke out as the three glowing aliens closed in on the humans. The gunfire suddenly stopped and the shouting faded away in the wind.
    “Fuck, we need to get out of here,” Connor whispered. He turned to slide back down the hill when Oakley reached out and grabbed his shoulder.
    “Sit tight, man. We aren’t going anywhere yet.”
    “Who the fuck put you in charge?” Connor replied. “We’re all guards. And until the watch commander shows up, I’ll do whatever the hell I . . .”
    Michael knew exactly what the pause meant. He grabbed his rifle. Connor had seen something else—something behind him.
    There were four creatures approaching the two Humvees from the south, their bodies spreading a gracious carpet of blue light over the desert.
    Spiders, he thought.
    The creatures definitely resembled spiders, but with only six legs and a much higher bend in the joints. They were about seven feet tall with a stocky torso and small head sporting a bonelike mandible rimmed with black, jagged teeth. But it was their eyes that made Michael shake with fear. There were dozens of them, all different sizes, darting back and