Free Critical Dawn by Colin F. Barnes, Darren Wearmouth Page B

“that’s Maria. What the fuck’s going on? Who are you? Where are we?”
    “We crashed, didn’t we?” Ethan said.
    The three of them turned to look at their ‘ship.’ Charlie noticed Ben angling his head to take in the giant tracks—the same tracks that were now jammed and splintered apart by Charlie’s land mines.
    Ben looked back at Charlie, a sudden realization making his face muscles tighten and his eyes narrow with fear. “It was all a lie,” he said to the others. “None of it was real.”
    “Damn right it wasn’t,” Charlie said, pointing to the two bodies of their former colleagues and brainwashed lab rats. “The croatoans use you as tools, nothing more. Well, that’s not strictly true. They use you … us … for lots of things.”
    Maria shook her head. “I don’t get it, what’s a croatoan? Where are we?”
    “Let me spell it out real quick. We’ve got about five minutes before these bastards return. We need to get you lot into cover ASAP. That,” he pointed to the great harvester, “is no goddamned ship. You’re not engineers or pilots or any other bullshit role they’ve brainwashed you into believing. That’s an alien harvester. You’re on Earth, your home. You’ve never left the planet.”
    “So we’re not going to Kepler B?” Ethan said. “Is it still 2451?”
    “No,” Charlie said. “2044. The shit hit the fan in 2014.”
    Ben stepped down the gouge in the earth and knelt. He pulled up a bright orange root, its tip sheared off from the harvester. All down the gouge, more roots with the same sheared tips lined the dirt like a carpet, and in amongst them were the bodies of his two colleagues.
    Ben placed his hands on the dead male’s back and bowed his head for a moment. After a few quiet seconds, he stood up and returned to the others, his eyes glossy with tears. “What do we do?”
    “I don’t believe this,” Ethan said.
    “Me neither,” Maria added, both of them on the verge of hysteria, the cold truth making it hard for them to comprehend.
    Denver’s dog barked twice and ran up to Charlie, licking at his hand. The grey-haired gun dog was excited about its find. Denver followed close behind, dragging a small croatoan by the alien’s scrawny, leathery neck. Denver’s wiry, strong frame loped forward and deposited the four-foot-tall alien between Charlie and Ben’s group.
    It collapsed into a huddle. Its weak, spindly arms, sufficient only to press buttons and type commands, huddled around its naked body. It shivered, and its widely spaced eyes narrowed. At one time, Charlie had pity for them. They were at the bottom of the croatoan hierarchy, but the slit for its mouth sneered, betraying its feelings for humans.
    “Good job, Den,” Charlie said, patting his son on the shoulder. Denver stood nearly a foot taller than Charlie and bowed to the others. “Meet your captor,” he said.
    Ben and the others leaned in but remained cautious.
    “Holy fuck,” Ethan said as the croatoan let out a gurgled hissing noise and spat at the ground, choking up phlegm and blood, the earth’s oxygen already at work poisoning its lungs without the breathing apparatus needed to enrich the oxygen with root compound.
    Denver kicked it forward into the dirt. “Shut up, scum.”
    “Easy, son,” Charlie said. Denver nodded and stepped back, running a nervous hand through his red beard. He looked up into the sky, anticipating a croatoan scout group to arrive any second. Charlie had to fight the urge to dive into the forest this very second, but this group needed to see for themselves before they’d go willingly.
    The last thing he needed was for a reluctant group of lambs to slow him down.
    Ben looked from the alien to Charlie. “Where did you get him … it, that, whatever it is.”
    “It’s your ship’s driver. Younger version of that fucker up there that killed your friends. It’s what’s taken over this planet. Well, I say take over; they were here long before we were,