Invasion

firefight – and completely unarmed and defenceless. The resistance, if it was the resistance, had to kill the aliens before they could scream for help. He threw himself to the hard ground as machine guns and automatic rifles joined the firing, bombarding the alien position heavily and sending two of the trucks up in flames. He spared a thought for the drivers, both of whom were probably dead, but there was no time to think. More rockets were coming down, bombarding the alien positions, and he felt a burst of hot pain as a piece of shrapnel sliced his cheek in passing. “Stay down…”

An alien unit raced past them, trying to lay down covering fire, but it was too late. The resistance cut them down swiftly, sending concealed bodies falling to the ground as a handful of humans emerged from the buildings. They’d done it very well, Pataki realised; if they’d been in the village while they’d been moving the bodies, no one had realised that they were there. If they’d somehow sneaked up on them, they’d completely fooled the aliens. Other aliens were trying to concentrate and defend themselves, but there wasn't time to prepare; more rockets and grenades landed and shattered their defences.

“Get on your feet, quickly,” the lead human shouted, as they cut down the remaining aliens. He bent down and applied a key to the chairs, unlocking the prisoners and allowing them to stand free for the first time in weeks. Pataki hadn’t known that it was possible to feel so good since the time he'd lost his virginity. They might die in the next few hours, but at least they’d die free. “Pick up the alien bodies and weapons and then come with us.”

“Yes, sir,” Pataki said, and shouted orders. The entire scene had fallen quiet with the death of the last of the aliens – it was a pity, he realised, that they hadn’t set out to take prisoners themselves – but it wouldn’t be long before the aliens organised a rapid reaction force. How far were they from an alien base? Or, for that matter, would they simply strike them from orbit? Resistance fighters were moving among the alien vehicles, tossing grenades into them and completing their destruction, while others were scattering booby traps around the area. “What now?”

“All right, listen up,” the leader shouted. Now that the shooting was over, he presented an almost larger-than- life image. “We have to move and we have to move fast. I want all the alien bodies carried together; follow your guide and we might manage to get you all out of here without losing anyone. Do as you’re told and you get to live.”

He smiled suddenly. “Oh, and welcome to the resistance,” he added. “God bless America!”

Chapter Twenty-One

Death by a thousand cuts – this is the time-honoured tactic of the guerrilla army against a large conventional force.

– Mohammad Yousaf

The unnatural darkness cloaked the small group of resistance fighters as they made their way towards the alien base. A bare few kilometres from Waco, the night should have been lit up by the glow of the cities and the human habitation all around them, but most of the power was gone. The citizens spent the night in near-complete darkness, illuminated only by candlelight and hand-powered flashlights, while the aliens didn’t seem to need the streetlights. It was possible, Pataki had been warned, that they saw in the dark better than humans, or that their black helmets included an advanced form of night-vision gear. It didn’t seem to matter that much; all that mattered, as far as he was concerned, was getting in as hard a punch as he could.

The aliens hadn’t given chase when they’d been liberated from the destroyed village, allowing the resistance fighters to bring them to a hidden base somewhere within Texas, before arming them and inviting them to continue the fight. Texas seethed with resistance activity, from gasoline bombs being thrown at alien vehicles to attacks by entire companies of resistance fighters, but the aliens were developing their own tactics to counter them. The aliens had cut off most of the communication with the cities – although they didn’t seem to grasp the possibilities of the internet – and they were conducting persistent sweeps for resistance fighters. The tactic wasn’t that successful, but it forced the resistance to remain hidden, while coordinating over such a large area was proving difficult. Worst of all, the aliens had even started to figure out human relationships and, as they started to strengthen their control, a handful of resistance fighters were picked up at checkpoints.

“If we could all coordinate, we might have a chance at actually throwing them out,” the leader had told him. Pataki had been told that the leader had been an accountant in a previous life, but he would have bet good money that there was some military experience in there somewhere. “As it happens, we can only hurt them and hope that people outside the red zone can get supplies in to us.”

Pataki had been astonished to discover how many different groups there were. Mercenaries in training at one of Blackwater’s training camps had proven surprisingly effective…but then, most of them had been ex-servicemen of one kind or another. The inner city gangs had fought the aliens with the same determination they’d used to keep the police out of their territory, but the aliens had brought up heavy firepower and systematically blasted them out of their hiding places. Thousands of soldiers, cut off from the front lines, had turned into insurgents…and Fort Hood, he’d been told, was pinning down thousands of aliens in trying to sweep out the remains of the soldiers there. The entire situation was a bloody mess; he almost felt sorry for the aliens.

Almost. Their base, ahead of him, had been built on the remains of yet another small town. It had been deserted before they arrived, but according to observers, the aliens had flattened all the buildings anyway, paying special attention to the two churches. It seemed to fit their normal pattern; the only religious places they left alone were graveyards, perhaps preferring to leave the dead alone. It was strange thinking of a star-faring race as being scared of ghosts, but maybe that was the answer, although he cautioned himself that just because he wanted to believe it didn’t make it true. The aliens had provoked more attacks on themselves by destroying religious buildings…and, by placing the base so far from major support, they’d handed the resistance a chance at a real success.

Or, perhaps, it was a trap.

The briefing had been clear enough. The aliens had deployed powerful radars around the red zone. Between them, they controlled the skies and blasted anything, aircraft or missile, out of them before they got close enough to do some damage. No aircraft flew on Earth now, apart from the handful of alien helicopters, which at least meant they could fire off anti-aircraft weapons at anything in the sky. The aliens didn’t seem – thank god – to deploy any heavy aircraft, either fighters or bombers, but they didn’t need them. If they were under heavy attack, they called in strikes from orbit…and they’d been doing more of that lately. Something had to be done to throw them back on their heels.

He peered through his night-vision goggles towards the alien base. It was nothing much; a handful of vehicles, carefully organised to protect the vehicle in the centre, the source of all the radar emissions. The techs had gone on and on about multi-phased radar algorithms and bullshit like that, but as far as Pataki was concerned, his only task was to destroy the radar vehicle. No one had told him so, specifically, but he’d picked up enough to guess that his assault wasn't the only one being mounted. If they could knock down all of the alien radars…but then, they’d still have the ones in space. The very concept astonished him; the aliens could literally sweep the ground with radar emissions from orbit and pick up on any moving vehicle, maybe even a moving person. If it didn’t have the right IFF, it got blasted, automatically.

All right, you bastards, he thought, as he surveyed the remainder of the base. Where are you?

The aliens had billeted their forces in what had probably once been a school. A handful were patrolling around the outskirts of the village, but the remainder were supporting the vehicles, watching for any incoming threat. It all looked surprisingly lax to him – he would have established random patrols of the area, just in case – but maybe the aliens couldn’t afford to expend more people on guarding the radar base. It was even possible that they were running out of soldiers, although that happy thought was probably wishful thinking. They couldn’t rely on the aliens running out of manpower any time soon.

“Sarge,” one of his men whispered. “Look.”

Pataki followed the pointing finger. A group of humans sat there, chained to a truck, a human truck. They didn’t look very pleased to be there, which probably meant that they were slaves, as he had been, rather than collaborators. There were actually quite a few alien collaborators now, although most of them were working for the