More Zeus troopers entered the settlement, and started going door to door. When it was obvious that most of the residents had abandoned the settlement, Alice saw them signal frantically to the hovering helicopters. She knew that she could wait no longer. Her throat burned and she longed to strike out at the men who had just killed her father, but she remembered what her father had told her. Most of the combat tested veterans had chosen to stay behind at the settlement, choosing to go down fighting so that their families may have a chance. Of the ones left, leave aside a couple of men who were good shots, Alice was perhaps the most experienced in both battle and in navigating the woods. She now had to lead them to safety. In the confusion of the hasty flight into the woods, she had lost sight of the Queen, and only hoped that she had not abandoned the humans who had sacrificed so much to keep her and her cause alive.
It was now nearly dark, and they could no longer hear the helicopters at the settlement. That could mean only one thing-that Appleseed had realized that pursuing them from the air was of no use in the dark when they were walking through a thick forest. They would have to come for them on foot. That suited Alice just fine. She, like most of the other survivors from the settlement had learnt to live off the land and to fight on foot, in the dark, and with nothing but the weapons they could carry. She had seen the awesome firepower Zeus could bring to bear, but also had seen that it's troopers relied too much on air power and heavy weapons. Now they were on Alice's turf and she would make them pay for what they had done.
She asked the group to halt and scanned them. More than half were children too young to fight, or those who were too old or sick to fight against trained troopers. Everyone at the settlement knew how to handle weapons-after The Rising that was almost an elementary education every human child had to go through if they wanted to live beyond a few years. But it was one thing to snipe at mindless Biters and quite another thing to take on heavily armed and trained Zeus troopers. Alice picked a dozen young men and women, all of whom she had trained with and knew were good in close combat. She was the youngest of them, but nobody questioned her authority. Alice had always been acknowledged as someone with fighting skills well beyond her age, but with the role she had played in unearthing the deadly secret behind the Biters, there was even more of an aura surrounding her.
Alice asked the rest of the group to go ahead. She knew that there were some abandoned mines about five kilometers away and that was to be their resting place for the night. If they got there undetected, it would be virtually impossible for Zeus to locate them from the air, and once the Sun rose, she planned to make contact with the Queen. Her hope was that she would give refuge to Alice and her fellow humans. What followed then was something Alice had not had time to plan for or think through. Alice took the dozen she had asked to stay with her and asked them to gather in a circle.
'These are not Biters. They will not come in blindly to be shot. They have better weapons than us and they know how to use them.'
'Thanks for that inspirational speech, boss', one of the boys quipped.
Alice smiled as she replied.
'They are not Biters, but they are human, that means they will feel one thing Biters do not.'
'What's that, Alice?'
'Fear.'
***
Alice sat with bated breath, some thirty feet above the ground, hidden by the branches of the tree she was perched on. The others with her were similarly hidden, waiting for the Zeus troopers to appear. Two boys had been sent ahead as scouts, and when they had understood the likely route the troopers were taking through the forest, Alice had told everyone to take their positions. This was a tactic that they had often used before, born out of the simple insight that no matter how ferocious Biters could be, nobody had yet seen a Biter climb a tree. Alice could hear the troopers long before she saw their shadows in the dark.
'They move like pregnant cows', she thought to herself as she heard their heavy footfalls and their voices. For someone who had grown up in the open countryside, and learnt from an early age what it meant to move with stealth and in the darkness, Alice knew this form of warfare intimately. The Zeus troopers, used to swooping down from the air and with heavy air cover to back them up, found this totally alien to how they normally went to war. That was the fatal weakness Alice hoped to exploit.
As Alice sighted her rifle at the nearest shadow, a flicker of doubt crossed her mind. This was not like shooting Biters, whom she had regarded as lifeless, mindless zombies, but shooting men, men who would bleed, men who would scream and thrash about as they died, men who were perhaps conscripts in the Zeus force from other settlements. Then she remembered what she had witnessed at her settlement and steeled herself and opened fire.
A single shot rang out and a trooper fell, hit in the leg. He screamed aloud and his comrades stopped, watching for attackers they could not see. They had night vision optics on their scopes, but night vision was of use only when you knew what you were looking for. A flash bang grenade rolled towards the troopers and as it exploded, it blinded them, rendering their night vision useless and also illuminated them in a ghostly glow. Alice and her comrades opened fire, using carefully aimed single shots. The firing lasted for less than twenty seconds, and when it had finished, not one of the dozen Zeus troopers was standing. Alice whistled, and all of them clambered down the trees and ran towards their escape route. They would not go straight for the mines, lest they lead the troopers to the larger group headed there, but would create a diversion, moving North and then looping back when they were in the clear.
Alice ran through the trees, her heart hammering, and keenly aware of the sounds behind her. She heard several helicopters overhead, and while the helicopters would not be able to target them through the thick forest cover, it meant that Zeus had perhaps called for reinforcements. More troopers were coming after them to avenge their comrades and she thought she heard Appleseed bellowing orders. Part of her wanted to stop and seek her vengeance against him, but she knew that she would not be able to do what her father had entrusted her with by leading a suicide mission. With the element of surprise gone, they would be not much of a match for the more numerous and better equipped Zeus troopers. She had to regain the advantage of surprise otherwise they would not live to see the next morning.
It was impossible for her to account for every man and woman in her squad in the darkness and as she spotted a good hiding spot, she slid to a stop behind a large, fallen tree. She whistled, hoping her comrades would join her, and soon enough they were sliding into position next to her. She did a quick voice count and came up three short.
'Where are Rahul, Divya and Chetan?'
She was answered a second later when she heard bursts of gunfire. A voice cried out for mercy and was silenced with a single shot. Alice blinked back tears and tried to think what to do. She knew how to fight, but had always counted on her father being there to lead everyone, to give direction. Now being accountable for the lives of so many was a responsibility she did not think she was ready for. But whether she was ready or not, she had to act because she could now hear the Zeus troopers coming closer.
'Everyone, let's move West over the irrigation canal and then we'll get to the mines.'
They moved instantly on her suggestion, running through the forest, their homemade and patched soft soles barely making a noise, in contrast to the heavy boots of the Zeus troopers now in hot pursuit behind them. Alice saw some shadows ahead of them and skidded to a stop as she saw one of them raise a rifle.