Invasion

aliens under duress, their families held hostage for their good behaviour. Pataki was glad, despite himself, that he didn’t have any family in Texas; what would he do if he were told that he had the choice between betraying the resistance, or his family being killed?

“We’ll get them out,” he muttered. “Are the mortar teams ready?”

“Aye, boss,” another man said. He actually had been a government official, too low- level to be important, before the invasion. He’d taken to underground work like a duck took to water. Somehow, he was also one of the best shots in the small company. “They’re ready.”

Pataki smiled, carefully sighted his M16 on one of the alien guards, and pulled the trigger. The alien fell. A moment later, all hell broke loose as the mortars opened fire as one, their shells targeted on the alien radar. Mortars weren't the most accurate weapon in the world, but they’d had plenty of time to choose their targets and at least one shell landed directly on the alien radar. A chain of explosions tore it apart as the aliens returned fire…

Damn, they’re fast, Pataki thought. His position had barely been missed by a machine gun mounted on one of the IFVs. One of his men took aim with a Javelin and expended it, against orders, on the IFV, blowing it up in a massive fireball. The remaining aliens, forced back into the school, fired down desperately towards the human positions, daring them to attack the school and flush them out of their position. Pataki smiled, nodded to one of the missile teams, and watched as they launched a single missile right through one of the school windows. Judging from the size of the explosion, the aliens had been stockpiling ammunition inside for quite some time; if any of them had survived, it would be God’s own miracle.

“Get the prisoners,” he snapped. The aliens would respond harshly and, despite his belief that they were being attacked all over Texas, he knew that they didn’t dare stick around. “Squad Two; you’re on rearguard. The rest of you, fuck off; we’ll meet you at the rendezvous point, assuming we survive.”

“Yes, sir,” the former government worker said, rapidly packing up his mortar and retreating. Pataki rolled his eyes – he’d told the man never to call him ‘sir’ a dozen times and it still hadn’t taken – and watched grimly as the former prisoners were released and welcomed to the resistance.

“Time to take our leave,” he said, as Squad Two rapidly completed their work. The alien bodies – so far, no one had taken an alien alive, apparently – were being booby-trapped with grenades and a handful of mines. The aliens recovered all of their bodies, apart from the ones that had been spirited away by the resistance, and if they were lucky, they would kill a handful of aliens when they came to retrieve these bodies. The alien vehicles, he suspected, were well beyond repair. “Move out!”

They vanished back out into the silent night…except it wasn't silent. The still night air could carry sound an amazing distance and he could hear, faintly, the sound of shots and fighting. In the distance, he could see new fires burning…and, when he looked up, he could see twinkling in the night sky. Something was happening up there, he was sure…but what?

***

The ground-based laser vehicle hadn’t been a great success in trials, Mikkel Ellertson knew, despite the best that the researchers could do. The laser was the most powerful built on Earth, so far, but it couldn’t slice through metal like a knife through butter; that, alas, was still in the realm of science-fiction. It could – and had – be used to trigger off missiles before they could impact on the ground, but it couldn’t be used to destroy alien spacecraft high above. If it could, it would have prevented the aliens from seizing control of Low Earth Orbit and the entire war would have gone very differently.

What it could do was damage sensitive components. Ellertson, a student of high technology since he’d been a little kid watching his father solder together a mass of components to produce something weird and wonderful, was certain that the alien space-based radars were actually quite fragile. If they were deployed in zero-gee, they could have been built without any of the limitations that ground-based systems hard, hardened against any kind of attack. The aliens thought that their radar system was untouchable…and, as far as missiles were concerned, they were right. A missile could destroy the station with ease, assuming that it reached the alien radar, but it would be burned out of space a long time before it reached attack range. The alien lasers could burn through steel, if not immediately.

“Target locked,” one of the technicians said. Ellertson shivered, despite himself; they couldn’t use active sensors to track the alien craft, but the alien radar was pumping out a formidable amount of energy with each sweep. It might as well have been taunting them; it was easy to track it, but far less easy to attack it. “Laser primed and ready.”

Ellertson picked up the field telephone. “We’re ready,” he said, without preamble. “Go?”

“Ten seconds from my mark,” the voice on the other end said. “Mark.”

Ellertson counted down the seconds. “Fire,” he barked, as soon as he reached zero. The humming from the laser truck grew louder, but there was no sign of any other effect; the laser beam was almost invisible in the air, although some people might see a hint of its presence. “Run!”

The laser was firing on automatic now. He could almost imagine the beam pumping energy into the alien system, vital components frying and being damaged, even as the alien craft zeroed in on the source of the attack. They sprinted as far as they could from the vehicles, knowing that the aliens would react swiftly to the attack, wondering which laser would be the first to go. There were a dozen stations pumping out laser fire, trying to take down the alien radar network before the aliens could react…and one of them would be the first hit. Perhaps…

The ground heaved and threw him through the air, smashing him into a rock. He felt, in slow motion, his bones start to break under the impact…and then darkness came for him. He almost welcomed it. Behind him, the laser truck had been almost completely obliterated by the alien strike.

***

The display had been showing the eerie red sweeps of the alien radars, both the space-based and ground- based systems, but now, one by one, they were blanking out. The operator turned to General Ridgley and gave him the thumbs up; the alien network had been knocked down, for now. They’d have a window of opportunity to hurt the aliens before they got their radar network set up again and started to strike back.

He lifted his field telephone and smiled. “All units, this is base,” he said. “Go!”

***

Captain William Morrigan, USN, checked the message slip against the codebook and winced. The USS Nebraska had been lurking in deep water ever since the aliens had started their invasion, hoping that they would have a chance to launch their missiles against a target in orbit, if not a target on the ground. The possibility that they might be called upon to nuke Texas had sparked some interesting debate in the wardroom, but most of the crew had understood that it would be their duty, although several seaman who had come from Texas had almost collapsed when they realised that they might have to kill their own families.

“I have an authorised launch code,” he said, once he had briefed the firing crew. He inserted his key into the launch system and waited. “Do you concur?”

One by one, the remaining four officers inserted their own keys. The order had been simple and, in some ways, it was almost a relief. They had to fire two missiles, programmed to detonate at high attitude and generate an EMP pulse, which would – hopefully – disrupt the aliens from counterattacking.

“Missile primed and launched,” he said, finally. The boat shook as the missile was discharged from its tube in a burst of pressurized gas. A moment later, its rocket engine ignited and propelled it towards space. The second missile followed moments later. “Helm, take us out of here, somewhere deep!”

The Russians had reported that the aliens had killed two of their ballistic missile submarines from orbit, Morrigan knew, and there was no point in taking chances. They had to run silent, run deep…and hope that the aliens were too occupied to fire back. The odds were in their favour, he hoped…

***