Invasion

included his fingerprints in its memory. There had been times when details like that had been missed from terminals, screwing up entire operations or worse, and there was so much that could go wrong. The terminal bleeped, granting access, and opened up for him, revealing a link that stretched all the way back to Washington. He’d seen enough of the systems to believe that they would continue to work, even with Washington’s destruction.

His hands danced quickly across the keyboard, confirming his identity and sending a message to Fort Hood. The main buildings would have been destroyed, but that wouldn’t worry the soldiers, not the ones hiding out on the grounds. The trick would be to see if he could get there…and if they would be expecting him. It took nearly an hour before a reply arrived, confirming that they could meet him, but he’d have to make it there himself. He checked the location quickly, made a mental note of a route that would take him there by a roundabout route, and settled back into the hide. He’d have to sleep during the day and then make the rest of the journey by night.

He’d wondered if one of the other resistance units would come to the hide, but none came during the day, allowing him to get several hours of uninterrupted sleep. He awoke as darkness started to fall, ate a small MRE quickly, and then sealed off the hide again before starting the long walk. He was tempted to visit some of the smaller towns on his route, but the aliens would be active there, or they would have driven out the human citizens. He’d picked up the reports about them clearing towns by force, but it had taken Joshua to put two and two together and figure out why; the aliens didn’t just want an invasion, they wanted settlement as well. The towns they’d cleared were probably being demolished already.

Should just nuke you, you bastards, he thought. The aliens hadn’t, as far as he knew, reached the Pantex Plant in the north of Texas, but if they knew that the only nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly plant was in their grasp, they would certainly try to grab it. The Internet had been silent on just what had happened to the plant, but his imagination filled in all sorts of possibilities, from alien occupation to the plant rigged to blow…to the aliens having bombed it and destroyed the United State’s capability to make new nukes. He hoped that the equipment had been moved, but that wouldn’t be an easy task, certainly not with the alien control of space. Their unearthly glow was still lighting up the skies to the southwest, a reminder of the cities they were building, which meant that they would soon be trying to expand again.

The thought distracted him from his walk as he skirted all human or alien contact, walking northwards. The aliens had been balked from expanding further into America, but that wouldn’t deter them forever…and there were plenty of weaker countries out there. They’d landed in the Middle East, which couldn’t put up much of a fight against their capabilities, and that gave them access to most of Africa. There were plenty of people in Africa who would have welcomed their arrival, if only because it might actually give them some safety. The Janjaweed couldn’t stop the aliens for a moment…and if they were duly slaughtered, as they would be against any halfway decent military force, the aliens would make one hell of a lot of friends.

…And then the aliens wouldn’t need the United States anymore.

He saw a set of lights down on the road and detoured around them, spying the alien patrol from a distance, wishing for a pair of night vision goggles. The aliens seemed to be more on alert – this close to Fort Hood, they were probably terrified of IEDs and the human soldiers who were covering them – and operating on a random schedule, but there was no way to be sure. He didn’t need to be noticed, at least not by them, but if they saw him, they would certainly want to know what he was doing in the area. The Internet had claimed that thousands of refugees had tried to make it to Fort Hood, or out of the Red Zone, and by now he had dumped his ID card. He wasn't going to be stopped now.

A flash of brilliant white light lit up the sky, followed by a rising explosion and a burst of shooting. It sounded as if the alien patrol had run into trouble. Fighting down the urge to go see what had happened, Brent picked himself up and ran, running as fast as he could over the road and into the sealed area, avoiding the aliens as they moved to respond to the attack. Fort Hood was so large that they couldn’t hope to guard the entire border and, if the reports were to be trusted, they weren’t even trying. He should have passed their forces now, heading into the trees and thickets of the training area, scrambling over the remains of a fence as if the devil himself was after him. Lights and sounds flickered through the night, the noise of alien helicopters – giving Fort Hood a wide berth, he noticed – sending shivers down his spine. He was used to fighting in an urban environment; it had been too long since he’d been to Fort Hood…

“That’s far enough,” a voice drawled, seemingly out of nowhere. A red dot, barely visible, settled on his chest. “Hands in the air, if you please, and don’t touch any weapons.”

Brent mentally kicked himself as he raised his hands. A moment later, three soldiers materialised out of nowhere, their weapons raised and covering him. He was impressed with the ambush, although hindsight told him that they’d simply been watching for anyone trying to get into the area with night-vision gear…and he’d been fairly obvious during that final sprint. A pair of strong arms searched him roughly, removing the pistol, his rucksack and a knife.

“All right,” the soldier growled. Brent was suddenly aware of just what sort of sight he presented. He could have taken one of them in a fight, but all of them? They had every right to be more than a little paranoid of strangers. “Who the hell are you?”

“SF34,” Brent said. He didn’t have to give out anything else, not yet. “Who the hell are you?”

“They told us to expect you,” the soldier said. He sounded a great deal friendlier now, but Brent was still very aware of the red dot, now dancing around his heart. “Who was the instructor in unarmed combat during your time at Fork Polk?”

Brent almost panicked. There were several possible answers. “Sergeant Corso,” he said, finally. The gruff man looked completely harmless…and had thrown soldiers twice his size around as if they were children. “He reported to Captain Harmon, who in turn…”

“Ok, ok, we got you,” the soldier said. “Come on; we don’t have all day.”

Fort Hood’s interior felt…freer to Brent. It was certainly a far cry from Austin, where the insurgency had fought the aliens. Here, there were defensive positions everywhere, with tunnels and fallback positions carefully woven into the terrain, backed up by artillery and even a handful of tanks. The men – and a handful of women – looked as if they would never pass another inspection, but they were united by their determination to hold out indefinitely. They were proud of what they’d done, he saw, and he couldn’t blame them. The best the insurgency had done was bleed the aliens badly.

His guide told him some of the stories as they reached a hidden door, leading down to a bunker complex. Fort Hood had been on alert since the aliens had separated their ship and most of the buildings had been abandoned… and the aliens had barely dented their capabilities, even if – his guide assured him – there had been a lot of very convincing weeping and gnashing of teeth on open channels. They’d come in expecting an easy occupation, ambushed and chased back out again, after which the fighting had settled down to the occasional savage confrontation between the two sides and plenty of insurgency. The bunker system, something that wasn't discussed publicly, had kept Fort Hood alive…and kicking.

“So that’s what they’re doing,” Colonel Osborn said, when Brent had finally finished his story. He’d regained a little of his own pride when he’d realised that the soldiers were in awe of his own accomplishments, even though neither side had really harmed the aliens enough to make them give up and withdraw. “They’re settling here.”

He scowled. Brent had been a little surprised to discover that a mere colonel was commanding the defence, but it had turned out that the original commanding officer had been killed by the aliens, although so far it seemed that they didn’t know that.

“We’ll forward this off to Washington,” he added. “You might have to go with it later. Until then, get some rest. You’ve earned it.”

Chapter Forty-Two

Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it.

– Robert A. Heinlein

“It’s confirmed, then?”