Invasion

warehouses by the side of the interstate. The latest reports, garbled over the radio – and rapidly silenced – or through the telephone lines and often out of date, had warned that the aliens had broken onto the interstate and started to advance down towards Austin. They were apparently blowing hell out of the civilian vehicles along the way and meeting some resistance from gun-owners in their path. Wallis doubted that the civilians would be able to do more than irritate the aliens, not unless they had some antitank missiles hidden in their cars, but they might slow the aliens down long enough for the National Guard to get organised. They might not be able to defeat the aliens in the field, but a fight in Austin would chew the aliens to bits, as long as they had enough time to prepare.

He scowled down at his watch as he peered into the distance, noting the rising columns of smoke and flashes of light, all coming closer. He’d been a tanker in Iraq and he recalled how Saddam had made the Iraqis switch their defences to the north, apparently under the delusion that the Coalition was about to make a new thrust out of Turkey. It had revealed the position of far too many Iraqi soldiers, who had paid for their leadership’s mistakes with their lives…and it was exactly what the aliens had done to America. Significant amounts of firepower, enough to stall or even defeat the aliens, was wandering around, trying to get back in touch with headquarters, or even other units. Between the jamming, the smashing of any radio transmitter and the complete control of the air, the aliens held all the cards. They were probably anticipating an easy mopping up operation.

Not fucking likely, he thought, as he stared into the distance. Four Abrams mounted a significant amount of firepower in their own right and there was an entire company of infantry, many of whom lived in Austin, providing support. The aliens would probably react at once when they opened fire, but even so, he expected that they would get at least three shots off before the aliens could hit them, assuming they stayed where they were. That would be suicide…and so he intended to move as soon as they opened fire. The only problem was that they hadn’t had time to exercise properly…

A green flare flashed up in the distance. He tensed, even as he muttered a quick command to the runner, sitting by the tank. The spotter had been ordered to fire the flare once the aliens came into view and then make himself scarce, hopefully finding a way out of the occupied zone and back to a military unit. Fort Hood was large enough to be extremely difficult to cleanse of human life…or, with a little luck, he might even make it to Louisiana or Oklahoma, if he didn’t find any other military units in Texas. Wallis prayed under his breath as the first of the alien tanks came in to view, heading right towards their position.

It was the first time he’d seen an alien vehicle and he drank the sight in greedily, hunting for weaknesses. The alien tank looked crude, but tough, tough enough, perhaps, to take a high explosive round and survive. That wasn't too surprising – the Abrams tanks were capable of taking one hell of a beating and remaining functional – but he’d loaded his guns with armour-piercing rounds. They were supposed to be capable of destroying any tank on Earth; they’d even been field-tested on other Abrams and other tanks. No one knew what they would do to the alien tanks; one of the other spotters was tasked with nothing more than watching the entire engagement from a safe distance – if there was such a thing – and reporting back to brigade HQ.

It’s hovering, he thought, with a flicker of envy. They’d been talking about hovering tanks for years, but as he knew, they remained firmly in science-fiction, rather than real life. It certainly didn’t leave the same trail of wreckage that a normal tank would leave behind on the interstate and it simply hovered over smaller obstacles. It was lucky that most of the civilians had simply abandoned their vehicles and fled; he didn’t want to see a massacre, not when he had to prepare as best as he could for the ambush.

“Take aim,” he ordered, watching the targeting display carefully. He’d assigned targets before seeing the aliens and it was a relief to see that his orders would hold. If the aliens had done something else, two or more tanks might have gone for the same target. That would have left at least one enemy tank completely unengaged. “Any sign of air support?”

“No, sir,” the observer called, from his position outside the tank. “They’re on their own.”

“Probably think they don’t need it,” Wallis said, and grinned. It didn’t matter how deadly the KEWs were; it would still take time for them to call in a strike on his position, and by then he would have moved. He wondered what the aliens thought of it; he would have given his teeth for a Warthog or a B52 high overhead, providing cover to the tankers. “Prepare to fire…”

He peered at the oncoming form of the alien tank for a long moment. “Fire!”

The Abrams shook as it fired, the sound of the shot deafening, even through the tank’s armour. He’d ordered the crewmen outside to wear their ear-protectors, but if they’d slipped up even slightly, they’d have been deafened. There wasn't time to worry about them; he barked orders and the tank’s turret hurriedly traversed to the next target, barking out a second shot towards the alien vehicle. The first shell, he saw with some relief, had blown right through the alien vehicle and left it in flaming wreckage, the second had had a similar result. Their tank, he saw with a burst of emotion that surprised him, were far from invincible. Between them, nine alien tanks were in ruins…

“Move us,” he ordered. The driver didn’t have to be told twice; he gunned the engine and the tank rocketed backwards, out of the rear entrance of the warehouse. They’d be visible from orbit now, but there was no helping that, not now; a moment after they’d vacated the warehouse, a thunderous explosion shook the entire complex and sent the warehouse up in flames. “Get us to the second firing position!”

An echoing sound announced the arrival of return fire. The aliens were firing into all of the warehouses, not just the ones occupied by the tanks, and shattering explosions blew through the complex. Warehouse after warehouse was wiped out, destroying two of the Abrams along with them, destroyed before their crews could escape. His vehicle rocked and shook as it reached the next firing position, where he could see the aliens tanks ripping apart the complex and, behind them, alien infantrymen dismounting from their armoured fighting vehicles. They probably intended to storm whatever remained of the complex and deal with the human survivors before they could escape to fight again. They had to be…delayed.

“Fire,” he snapped. They had to act quickly before the aliens saw them. “Fire at will!”

The Abrams fired twice in quick succession while the driver put the vehicle through a spinning series of manoeuvres. It wasn't quick enough. An alien missile, fired from an invisible drone a kilometre above the tank, blew through the turret and roasted the crew alive. The alien infantry pushed through the National Guardsmen and engaged them in brutal fighting, before sealing the complex off and pushing onwards towards Austin.

***

“This is the emergency broadcast system,” the voice said. Coming from a pair of old laptop speakers, it was somehow tinny and almost inaudible. The power supply had fallen to almost nothing and the laptop – and the entire apartment – was running on batteries. They had never thought of a portable generator. “Austin is under attack.”

“No shit,” Joshua growled. It had been increasingly obvious, as they’d watched from the roof, that the city was on the verge of coming under assault. It was clever of Governor Brogan and his staff to think of using streaming internet radio for their transmission, but the entire network in Austin was on the verge of failing. Joshua suspected that between the alien bombardment and human incompetence, the national communications system was about to fall apart. It hadn’t been designed with this sort of mistreatment in mind. “Tell us something we don’t know, you fat pig!”

Governor Brogan kept talking. “I do not know what will become of us under alien rule, but I urge every citizen to remain calm and refrain from rash acts,” he continued. “Our attempts to signal the aliens have met with no response, but they cannot want to slaughter us all. I hope – I believe – that peaceful co-existence is possible.”

He sounds like a broken man, Joshua thought, feeling an unexpected burst of sympathy for the Governor. He had never respected the man before the invasion had begun, but now…what would he do now? He’s watching his entire state being dismantled in front of his eyes. Does he want to surrender?

“Please remain calm and obey their instructions,” the governor said, his voice now weaker than ever. “Please don’t attempt to resist them…”

“Turn it off,” the gun nut snapped. “They’re not going to sell us out to them!”

“Be reasonable,” Mr Adair said, grimly. “What are you going to do against the aliens with your hunting rifle? There’s an entire army out there.”

There was another burst of firing in the distance. This burst seemed to go on forever, a horrendous mixture of