Kadaitcha by Michael Aulfrey Part 7/7 ----------------------------------------------------------------- The Landrover came to a screeching halt in five seconds. Mulder found himself half-catapulted over the back seat. Both the Aboriginal men were looking at him in outright astonishment now. Charlie's knuckles were white on the steering wheel. "Track it? What're you on about?" His voice was a pale shadow of what it once was. "Haven't you listened to what I've said?" Mulder recovered himself from being half-catapulted over the back seat. "I hit it, Charlie. Three times at least. And it didn't kill me, because it was wounded. If it can be wounded, it can be stopped. I'm asking you--can you track it?" "Man, I don't even want to be know about it!" He pointed at the old man. "My grandfather saw this once before. His father told him about it, and his father before him. An army platoon came here while he was just a boy! Kadaitcha came back and killed all of them!" "Charlie, the army's back. Or at least I think it is. And I think they want to try and catch this thing. Try and make a weapon out of it." "Let 'em try. This thing's better than an atom bomb at close range. It'll slaughter them. No more attempts to make a weapon out of it. Once bitten, twice shy, right?" Mulder chewed his lip, allowing the ramifications of that to sink in. For a long moment, he considered letting them do just that. But the image of the five murdered rabbit-shooters, cut to pieces in the back of the utility, kept imposing itself over his vision. Imposed itself over its vision and clothed itself in a dozen camouflaged uniforms. Young men with families. Acting under orders. And CancerMan's image hovered over it all, sending one group of men after another against the thing until one succeeded. "A lot of innocent people have already died because of this thing, Charlie. Crawford's badly hurt, maybe dying, because he was trying to stop it. He said you're the best tracker there is. A lot more people will die if we don't stop it now." He paused. "Now. Can you or can't you track this thing down?" Charlie's eyes were wide. Mulder could see those same visions flashing before it. For a long moment, Mulder thought he wouldn't do it. Then the Aboriginal's eyes focused back on the two of them, and he pressed his lips together. "I can track anything alive." * * * Charlie brought the binoculars down and sniffed contemptuously. "Amateurs. They haven't got anything but sniffer dogs." He got up from his prone position and dusted himself off. They were at the top of a hill, looking down on a dried-up sea of grass. In that space, camouflaged figures moved in the open grassland, the dogs bellowing even at this distance. The Landrover parked on the other side of the hill, they lay looking down at the search party which had deployed from the helicopters. Mulder and Scully were sitting behind an orange-coloured rock, bleached by the sun's heat. "Sniffer dogs don't impress you?" asked Scully. Charlie shook his head. "Dogs will go off on any scent they can find, if it's powerful enough. You just have to know the right scent to give them. Human beings have that wonderful capacity to screen out distracting stimuli. Dangerous for the professional thief or assassin, maybe, but a damn sight better than chasing up every bit of kangaroo dung in the country, when you're tracking something." He turned, walked down the hill towards the flat plate of rock where the old man was grinding up a combination of leaves into a paste on the rock. He asked the old man a question, to which his grandfather replied with a nod, a string of words, and a laugh not unlike that expected of Doctor Frankenstein. Charlie couldn't help but smile as he picked up some of the leaves. "Anyway, smear a bit of this stuff around and we won't have any further problems with the dogs." Night fell quietly, though in the Landrover the passengers weren't privy to any sounds. Charlie's eyes were locked on the ground in front of the Landrover's headlights, following some trail that they couldn't see. Mulder had asked him once what he was doing, and had received a curt request to be quiet in reply. They had lost the search parties a few minutes after Charlie and his grandfather had laid the leaves about the trail of the creature. Then they had followed the trail themselves. Occasionally, they would stop and get out of the truck, and Charlie would seem to sniff the air, apart from scrutinising the ground for tracks. He had explained that the thing's footsteps could be found after all. "You must have hit it a good one, Mulder. It's not even trying to hide its footsteps now. It's injured, all right." He pointed to an impression on the ground. It was indistinct, but Mulder could see the bare outline of the massive foot. Long, double-toed. But dragging in the ground nonetheless. "We'll find him," said Charlie. Mulder heard the faint stirring of fear behind that sound. They were still following the trail when they came up to a fence. However, the owners of the fence would need to visit this particular area. There was now a gulf in the fence about five metres wide, each half peeled back as though it were an orange skin. Mulder nodded his head in confirmation; he hardly had to look at the fence to know that it was the formerly electrified barrier they had surveyed earlier in the day. "It went this way, all right." "There's the understatement of the year," said Charlie, crouching down to look at the ends of the fencing wire, touching the ends tentatively. "This wasn't cut using any tools. The metal's still a bit warm. It's like it ripped the wire open with its bare hands." Charlie looked at Mulder again. "I hope you've got some idea of how to stop this thing, Mr. Mulder. If it's still strong enough to do this to an electrified fence, even wounded, it'll probably do a lot worse to you." Mulder didn't reply as they got back in the Landrover and drove through the fence's remains into the dark terrain that lay beyond. "Did this area have any significance for the Kaladjuma?" asked Scully, her first question in a long time. Charlie exchanged a sentence or two with his grandfather. "Not really. The only warning that existed here was not to drink from the waterholes here. Poisonous. Then it was fenced off, and that was the end of the matter." He looked at them for a second. "Why? You know something about this area?" "I've got a feeling it was fenced off because the Kadaitcha might keep coming back here every time it decides to start killing again." Mulder stopped, a chill running down his spine. That meant... There was an explosion of light in his right field of vision, and his worst fears were confirmed. He instinctively threw himself over Scully to protect her from the blast, but there was no accompanying detonation of sound; merely a loud buzzing in the air and the sweep of the searchlight over the back part of the car. The thudding of the helicopter's blades was loud, overriding even the Landrover's rattling engine. Obvious, in retrospect. They'd lost the scent, so they went back to wait for the Kadaitcha to return to where they knew it would eventually go, if their calculations were right. The Western Mining site. Charlie swore loudly and made a hard right, starting a weaving pattern. Dust screamed up from the ground in huge plumes, illuminated as thick sheets of mist by the swerving searchlight. In the dark, off the track, it was suicidal for anyone to increase speed in those conditions. Charles Duggan, however, was not just anyone. The loudspeaker on the side of the helicopter was braying, the electronics of the amplifier stretched to the limit. "You in the Landrover! Stop your car and turn off your engine! You are trespassing on private property! You will not receive a second warning!" "Some welcome wagon," muttered Mulder, too low under the screech of tires and the whup of the helicopter to be heard. "Hang on to yer hats, folks--we're gonna do some driving!" yelled Charlie, and floored the accelerator. The truck should not have been able to achieve a higher rate of acceleration than it was already doing. Unfortunately, the helicopter pilots had not counted on Charlie's modification of the engine to include a turbocharger. The Landrover shot forward as though kicked from behind, the searchlight losing them in the darkness. Charlie gave a wild ululating yell as the speedometer needle crept towards a vertical position and beyond. "Scully, get ready to jump!" yelled Mulder as he pulled out his pistol and checked to see that the safety was off. He began to roll down the window. "You're out of line," she snorted, her calm voice somehow cutting through the noise of the engine's whine. She pulled out her own pistol and ducked down behind the back seat as the searchlight caught up with the rear of the car again. Mulder heard another sound that he for a moment mistook as the helicopter. Then there was another sound; a bit like an several aluminium cans being opened, but without the hiss of escaping air at the end. The rear window of the Landrover shattered even as he ducked, spraying glass over the interior. The searchlight of the helicopter swayed wildly as the pilot brought the machine around to give the door-gunner, rearming the machine-gun, a better shot. Everyone ducked down, though Charlie came up quickly and started to swerve again. Bullets kicked up the dirt where the truck had been a second earlier. Mulder looked at Scully as they huddled below the back seat's top, the air screaming in their ears. "Having fun yet?" yelled Mulder, despite the fear that he saw mirrored in Scully's eyes. She smiled grimly. "Just don't mention Butch Cassidy!" she shouted back. Her eyebrows were raised inquiringly. The prior fear was gone; there only remained recognition of a harsh necessity for action. He nodded; held up one finger, then two, then three. They rose to their knees on the wildly pitching back seat and opened fire, three shots each. The gunfire echoed loudly in the back of the car. More for distraction value than practical effect, really. There was little chance of them hitting the helicopter from the angle they had. Nevertheless, Mulder was gratified to see the helicopter veer off their trail again. Then the Landrover gave a sudden lurch, and Charlie screamed "Brace yourselves!" just as the overstrained front axle gave way and smashed into the ground with a shower of sparks. Mulder got a hand to the frame of the car just as it slewed in its path, then rolled. The universe became a chaos of orbiting metal and sounds of crushing plants as Mulder held on. The Landrover's engine screamed as the rev counter went off the dial, a cry of agony as it entered its death throes. He thought he heard someone screaming. He couldn't tell if it was Scully or himself. For a moment Mulder was terrorised by a vision of the cabin crushing them like bugs under a shoe; but the reinforced frame of the truck was tough and the thing held its shape as it tumbled once, twice, five times, losing debris like some tank disrobing and finally came to a stop. The universe stopped spinning. Mulder shook the fuzz out of his head with a groan and settled for focusing on whatever was directly in front of him. The car had luckily come down right- side up; despite a fetching reorganisation of the interior, everything appeared intact. He was about to look towards Scully when a gun muzzle suddenly stuck itself into his cheek and a gruff voice told him to bring up his hands. He'd expected death. It had been just a matter of time. The geography of it was his problem. He slowly brought his hands up, getting out of the Landrover as carefully as possible so as not to bring on the death quicker than he wanted. Behind him, he heard another door slowly open and close, and more harsh voices ordering the others out of the car. The helicopter had found a clear spot nearby, and its blades were powering down, losing motion through the friction of the air. The searchlight was fixed on the wrecked car's position. Mulder regarded the figure before him. Male. In combat fatigues. But there was a black balaclava over its head, and it its black-gloved hands an M-16 rifle, pointed at his heart. The eyes were visible, but he might as well have been looking at the dead for all the good it did. More voices behind him, and the movement he sensed resolved itself as a familiar red-haired figure walked up beside him, hands on her head. His anxiety decreased a notch to see her survive, despite the grim situation. Next to her, the old man and Charlie, dark eyes staring hard and unrepentant at the soldiers. A thin line of blood trickled down Scully's forehead, though she made no sign of having noticed it. The other three soldiers walked up to join the first. They might as well have been clones for all the differences they had. "So what do we do with them?" The one who had gotten Mulder out was apparently the leader. "As we've been ordered." He cocked his rifle. Mulder closed his eyes and wished he could say goodbye to Scully before it was over. Every regret and hope he'd had rushed through his head. "Sir!" A sound of crunching footsteps. Mulder opened his eyes again, saw the pilot, with a helmet making him look like a mutant beetle, running over to them. "Sir, we've just got word. They've found it. They want everybody on Alpha condition." Just as casually as he had cocked the rifle, the leader uncocked it again and was walking towards the helicopter, one of the men following him. "All right. We'd better move fast. You other two- -stay here and guard them. We'll be back to help you bury them shortly." The remaining two saluted, then resumed their watch as the leader, the pilot and the junior got back onto the helicopter and powered up again. The helicopter lifted off with a swirling of dust that made them all squint, and was off into the night like a dark bird of doom. Charlie was first to speak up, a couple of minutes after the helicopter had faded into silence. "You fellas don't have a clue what you're dealing with." "Shut it, coon," said one of the soldiers, raising his weapon threateningly. "He's right, you know," said Mulder, even as the weapon muzzle swung towards him. "I've seen this thing you're trying to capture." There was a moment's hesitation from the anonymous guard. "That's what you're doing, isn't it? It took out a whole platoon of men armed to the teeth. I've got doubts you guys will be able to crack it, even with modern technology." "Listen, buddy, if you don't shut your mouth--" The blast heat was intense, even from this distance, and for a moment night became day over Starkey's Creek. Mulder shielded his eyes instinctively, even as the soundwave hit them with a bang like a thousand doors being slammed shut. In the north east, a mushroom cloud of near-atomic proportions rose into the night sky, a pillar of flame that God might have sent to guide the Israelites in this desert. Red and yellow cascaded. In the air itself, another explosion brightly flared and was gone. The mushroom cloud rose, slowly beginning to disappear in the night. "Jesus Christ!" the soldier who had been talking breathed as he stared at the blast, his gun still pointed at the four of them. "That must've been it! What the hell happened over there?!" His companion was silent, also seemingly entranced by the fallout of the massive explosion. The other one stared at the flame. "What're we supposed to do now?" "Tie up the loose ends," said his companion. The only thing Mulder's horrified brain could register at that second was that the voice sounded familiar. He watched in mute transfixion as the second soldier's rifle swung towards the first and spat fire. The air shook with the quick staccato of the rifle's hammer. Half a dozen bullets hit the soldier in the chest and face. He danced as though he were a grotesque marionette and finally crashed to the earth, blood spilling onto the ground. The remaining soldier pointed the weapon at the four remaining civilians. Mulder didn't even try to protest for his life; his mind was too busy replaying the soldier's dying dance as the metal slugs ripped into him. At last, all he could manage to choke out was "Why?!" The figure swivelled the gun so it pointed starwards, and reached up to remove the balaclava, exposing a thin, angular face. A thin, female face. The woman Mulder had received the information from. They could see her face much more clearly now. The errant thought strayed through Mulder's head that she was in fact quite beautiful. "Like I said, agent Mulder. You don't want to become one of us." She then pointed the rifle at them again, and backed away, fading into the night like a shadow. Above, the cloud of fire was dissipating, leaving traces of red dust in the air like the arms of a spirit. * * * Epilogue: FILE #185493-X DR. DANA SCULLY EXTRACT: REPORT, 6/12/95 Detective Crawford is recovering from his wounds at Royal Perth Hospital in the state capital, though the surgeons advise that he will be impaired in the use of his injured arm for the remainder of his life. Agent Mulder and myself have briefed him fully on all that has transpired, and he hopes to launch a fresh investigation into the matters in Starkey's Creek once he has fully recovered. The murderer of the people in Starkey's Creek has been officially identified as an escaped killer who had been using the town as a bolthole until the search for him was cut back. Agent Mulder and myself have avoided publicity over this matter. As the case is not within our jurisdiction, there are no further comments I can make on this case other than that the Starkey's Creek murders remain unsolved so far as Mulder and I are concerned. The metal slivers sent for analysis to CSIRO labs here in Perth have gone missing; we were informed that while CSIRO records having received the traces, nobody can recall having seen them after that time. We were also politely told that since we were out of our jurisdiction, we should leave it to Australian police to investigate it. Robert Crawford has made a complaint to the relevant authorities. EXTRACT ENDS. DR. FOX MULDER EXTRACT: AUDIO TAPE -- PERSONAL DIARY, 7/12/95 MULDER: Scully is asleep in the seat beside me, so I think it's safe for me to record this. As I sit here looking down over the Pacific Ocean, I'm led to wonder--not for the first time--whether we have achieved anything by our work at Starkey's Creek. It's pretty obvious now that no radiation experiment was conducted at the town. The killings were going on too long for that. However, that still doesn't tell us whether the thing we chased was a natural phenomenon or something else. One thing's for sure. Whatever I saw out there was more than animal. It had the power to produce some kind of major explosion, so it seems, and it had the ability to fight using edged weapons. [Pause] MULDER: And it sure didn't look like anything from this world. Whatever it was took human intellect. And then some. [Pause] MULDER: Officially, the authorities have still caught their killer, without the help of the FBI. At worst, we could be considered to have endangered the life of a fellow officer. At best, we've only demonstrated that there are problems when jurisdictions collide. [Pause] MULDER: But that's not the real subject here. The real question to be asked from this whole affair is the extent to which the conspiracy of silence involves other countries around the world. Scully and myself have run into this time and again, though she prefers to think of it as paranoia on my part. The existence of an international conspiracy is damning enough. But what if the reason behind the conspiracy is not a need to protect the public, but rather a desire by some leaders of some countries to curry favour with more influential ones? EXTRACT ENDS. FILE #2847654 PRIORITY CLEARANCE EXTRACT: COVERING LETTER, 10/12/95 RE: DAMOCLES OPERATION Sir, I should hope you are pleased with the contents of this package. Despite the loss of teams Alpha and Gamma, and the complete destruction of the extraterrestrial life form and ship by reason of its self-destruct device [Ref. File #8484092-Y] we have salvaged something of this affair. The metal slivers of this package are suspected to be of the alien's weaponry. CSIRO lab studies reveal a composition comprising of elements not on the periodic table. Perhaps you will consider this against the otherwise admittedly unfavourable report that you will be receiving soon. Re: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Charles Duggan and Robert Crawford: I would recommend that something be done about these persons in the near future, as per our usual mode of operations. They have a compromising level of knowledge with regard to this affair. Yours Sincerely. EXTRACT ENDS. END END OF PART 7/7. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Phew! It's all over at last. Hope you enjoyed it. Special thanks to everyone at Saint Thomas More College, Brian Hogben for helping me upload this stuff, and everyone on alt.tv.x-files.creative who have been so supportive to a newbie at this wondrous game... As you probably figured out, the story was a crossover between X-Files and Predator. I tried to keep it as equivocal as possible right up to the end...hope everyone liked it! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael J. Aulfrey University of Western Australia Address: mikeaulf@tartarus.uwa.edu.au ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Who hates yuppies? -- We do, Chucky. We do. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Microsoft: Who do you want to wipe out today? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Unarmed...and extremely attractive." --Dana Scully on Windows 95. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------