Invasion

arrive almost at once, where he could command his forces from half a world away…but that world was gone. If they sent a single radio signal, the aliens would smash them from orbit, probably without ever knowing what they had done. They were dependent, now, on runners, either on foot or using motorbikes. Without them, he would be completely cut off from the rest of his force. The field telephones weren’t working very well. “Tell them that we’ll meet them outside Austin.”

The map looked barely changed. The fragmentary reports weren't enough to build up a real picture of what was happening. Fort Hood had been hit hard enough to destroy its communications systems and he no longer had much in the way of communication with the other forces scattered around the area. The aliens were likely to defeat them all individually, one by one, and prevent them from concentrating against was through orbital bombardment. The only clue they had as to the alien locations were through the work of a signals and intelligence unit, which was tracking the sources of alien transmissions, even if they couldn’t read them. It wasn't enough. He didn’t know what was going on…and that meant that command had devolved down the ranks.

He hoped that they’d be up to the task.

***

The torrent of aliens seemed never-ending. Sergeant Oliver Pataki had given up trying to estimate how many aliens there actually were in their conical spacecraft; he’d counted over two thousand so far, and at least a hundred vehicles. Their hovering tanks and smaller vehicles, which he suspected were their form of IFV, seemed to move faster than comparable human vehicles…and that would give them an advantage. The countryside seemed to be burning everywhere; he could see plumes of smoke rising up in all directions. It didn’t look good for the human race.

He was mildly surprised that the aliens hadn’t detected their signals by now, but it was possible that they were simply ignoring them…or maybe, given how close they were to the alien landing site, they were reluctant to risk bombing them from orbit. The aliens hadn’t attempted to come up the hill yet, but once they did, the four soldiers intended to give them a hot welcome. He checked his M16 for the umpteenth time as yet another alien force advanced into the distance, heading towards the fires. Now that the alien craft had landed, he could hear the sounds of shooting in the distance, human weapons…and a deep booming sound that seemed somehow unearthly.

At least they don’t have handheld lasers, he thought, with a sudden burst of amusement. The alien weapons, as far as they could tell from their vantage point, were projectile weapons, although they looked nastier than some human weapons. He might have been imagining it – it was hard to tell at their distance – but there seemed to be a certain crudeness to their design, although that didn’t mean that they were useless. The AK-47 was an example of a crude approach…and no one would have called it a bad weapon, or even a useless piece of junk, not like some of the ideas that the scientists sold to the Pentagon that didn’t work in the field. The aliens seemed to prize the simple approach to technology; he’d seen nothing, so far, that he couldn’t understand, although human hovercraft technology was inferior to alien tech. He wished that he had some antitank mines he could test against the alien vehicles; he had a nasty feeling that some of the more basic mines wouldn’t be triggered by the alien hovercraft.

“Sir,” one of his men said. Pataki followed his finger and saw an alien aircraft take to the air. It looked like a drone to him, something comparable to the Predator recon drone, but as it flew, he saw that it carried bombs under its wings as well. Predators had been armed for years, but he hadn’t viewed them as a serious threat against a well-planned air defence system…but the aliens had shattered the American defences.

“I see it,” he said. There was nothing for it. They’d have to make another radio transmission. The system recorded the message and then transmitted it in one compressed burst, but he suspected that the aliens could detect microburst transmissions. They’d certainly proven themselves adapt at tracking other radio transmissions. “Recording…”

Having decided to take the risk, it was easy enough to make a complete report of everything they’d seen, including their count of alien tanks and other vehicles, as well as the aliens expanding their control over the landing site. They’d taken over a field and started to string up some kind of wire around it, something that reminded him of a holding pen for prisoners, although he doubted that they intended to capture the entire population of Texas. It was a good sign, in a way; it proved that they were taking prisoners. He completed the report and transmitted it… and then saw the aliens altering course. A group of them, marching on their strange legs, were heading up the hill.

“I saw them,” he said. They’d taken up as good a defensive position as possible, but he was certain that the aliens wouldn’t allow them to escape, not when they could surround the hill and intercept any attempt at fight. That left fighting or surrendering and he didn’t want to surrender, not when the aliens might have killed them all on sight. “Take aim…”

He levelled his M16 at an alien head, hidden behind a black helm, and his trigger finger tightened on the trigger. “Fire,” he snapped. Four shots rang out as one; four aliens tumbled to the ground. Their heads seemed to explode as the bullets passed through them, a sight that caused him to blink with disbelief; outside the movies, it wasn't that easy to literally shatter a person’s skull with a bullet. “Hit them again…”

An answering burst of fire flashed back at them. The sounds of the alien weapons were definitely different, but they seemed to work on similar principles; Pataki pulled a grenade off his belt, unhooked it and tossed it down towards the aliens. The explosion seemed to shake the ground; in its wake, he heard inhuman sounds of pain. They sounded like a trio of sea lions, or seals, howling their pain and outrage…and then an enemy grenade came over into their position. Pataki threw himself away from the weapon, watching in horror as one of his men tried to cover it with his body and was blown to bits when the grenade exploded. A second grenade, much closer, stunned him long enough for the aliens to break into their position; dazed, he realised in a moment of clarity that he’d lost his weapon. They peered down at him, their faces hidden behind their dark masks, and then pulled him to his feet. His body ached dreadfully, but they didn’t seem to notice, or care.

A buzz from one of the alien suits caught his attention. “You are our prisoner,” it said. “Do not attempt to resist.”

The aliens searched him quickly, and then marched him off towards their prison camp. He watched, helplessly, as thousands more aliens spilled out of their ships and headed towards the human cities, burning in the distance. One way or the other, he was out of the fight.

He could only hope that the rest of Third Corps was having better luck.

Chapter Fourteen

In peace or in war I have stood by thy side,

My country, for thee I have lived, would have died!

– Davy Crockett

The men and women of the Texas National Guard hadn’t seriously expected to have to fight an alien invasion. The 36^th Infantry Division – also known as the Fighting 36^th – had been deployed to strategic locations, but there had been an air of unreality about the entire proceedings. The aliens wouldn’t be landing at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, would they?

Captain Tom Wallis peered through the tank’s optical sensors and bite down a curse. They’d been wrong about the aliens being friendly and he and his tank were right in their path, along with the remains of what should have been a heavy BCT, attached to their unit at short notice. The idea had probably looked good to some staff weenie back in the Pentagon, but it had been pure hell for the tankers, many of whom had died when the aliens opened fire with KEW weapons on anything they saw from orbit. Several dozen Abrams and Bradley vehicles had met certain death when the aliens saw them, although they had sometimes ignored other vehicles on their own. They couldn’t have an unlimited supply of projectiles, after all, and expanding them all on individual tanks wouldn’t be cost- effective.

Or at least he hoped so. He’d managed to get the four tanks remaining in the platoon into the large