Invasion

now, was weapons that could be used against the spacecraft in orbit. If they could be destroyed, despite the vast damage inflicted on America, they could liberate Texas in fairly short order. “Have you prepared the special suits?”

Gary nodded. “There’s one rather small problem with them,” he admitted, as he led the way into yet another way. “We don’t move like the aliens. The first three will be alright, as they will be worn by aliens, but the minute they see the others moving, they will smell a rather large rat. How do you intend to solve that?”

“Leave that to us,” Paul assured him. The fewer people who knew that, the better; no one knew how far the aliens might have compromised their security. There were far too many people who had had relatives in Texas, perhaps now in alien hands. “Are you sure that you can have all the craft ready to fly on schedule?”

“Yep,” Gary said. “Hell, we could fly in twenty-four hours, if you want. It’s just a question of fitting everything together and then we can fly.”

“Good work,” Paul said. He paused. “Are you sure that you want to fly the mission in person?”

“I’m the most experienced spaceman the United States has left,” Gary said. “I did think about taking one of the aliens along with us, but that…might provide too much temptation for them.” He paused suddenly. “Do you really trust them?”

“I think so,” Paul said. “You know, in all of the skirmishes along the Red Zone’s border, not a one has ever surrendered? That fits in with what Femala told us; they kill male prisoners without mercy.”

“They took prisoners from us,” Gary said, thoughtfully. “Have you considered that?”

“They’re being worked to death,” Paul said. The images taken by the insurgents had been spread across the world, awakening a new desire to fight on, whatever the cost. The aliens had been doing the same in the Middle East and probably Australia, working the human prisoners to death. The soldiers, sailors and airmen might have been in the best of health when they’d been captured, but after nearly three months, they’d be dropping like flies. “I don’t think that that counts as the softly-softly approach.”

“No,” Gary said. “Still, they’re not human, and so…I don’t trust them, not completely.”

“Without them, we could never have gotten this far,” Paul reminded him. “We don’t have to trust them, but we need them.”

“One week,” Gary mused. “One week…to victory, or certain destruction.”

***

“Everything’s gone silent,” Joshua complained, examining the laptop. The Internet was the same as always, on the surface, but more than a few voices had gone silent. “What happened to him?”

Tessa shrugged from her seat, watching over his shoulder. He was very aware of her presence…and how she could break him in half without really trying. His former life hadn’t prepared him for female Special Forces soldiers, particularly ones who told him tales about how she’d infiltrated some terrorist’s harem and killed him when he'd summoned her to his bed. Her stories were so complex and strange that he really didn’t know if she was telling the truth, or merely playing games with his mind.

“He might well have made it,” she said, dryly. “He said he’d send a signal when he made it, so…just wait and see.”

“History is being made out there,” Joshua protested. “History…and I’m stuck here.”

“Is that a reporter’s spider sense?” Tessa asked. “You’re stuck here because the aliens would cut off your head the moment they laid eyes on you. I’m stuck here because the Captain told us to keep our heads down for a while before we tried to make any other aliens regret ever landing on Earth. If history is being made, it’s being made elsewhere and we’re on the substitutes bench.”

Joshua scowled as an explosion rattled the windows. “Someone didn’t get the stop order,” he said. “Was that one of yours?”

“No one could really control the insurgency,” Tessa admitted. “The aliens will break one cell and discover that they don’t have any links to other cells. It should drive them mad.”

“Being here is driving me mad,” Joshua protested. He knew he sounded petulant, but he couldn’t help it. “I’m bored.”

“Something will happen soon,” Tessa assured him. “Just wait and see.”

***

“One week,” the President said, staring down at the map. The Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean was covered with little icons. “One week.”

“We have to get moving now,” Paul said. “Once we get all the pieces in play, we won’t be able to stop, or parts of the operation will go ahead anyway and fail.”

The President looked up at him. “And what are the odds of success or failure?”

“Fifty-fifty,” Paul admitted. “There are some parts of the plan that might fail, and fail spectacularly, but we’d still have a chance. If both of the vital parts fail, then the aliens will have won the battle and know, exactly, what we tried to do. That will certainly draw a response from them that we won’t like.”

“They could go after the remaining cities,” the President mused. “If we try and fail…should we cancel the operation?”

Paul hesitated. “No, Mr President,” he said. “We should go ahead and pray.”

The President lifted an eyebrow. “Risking the lives of every American…and indeed all six billion people on Earth?”

“We cannot win without changing the power balance and reclaiming command of space,” Paul said. “If we let them stay up there, they can finish us off at their leisure. We might come up with new weapons and tactics, but none of them can prevent them from crushing us from orbit, hammering us into submission with asteroids, or even developing a bioweapon of their own and exterminating us. If we don’t move, we run the risk…no, we will be permanently subordinated on our own planet.”

“And if the plan works?” The President asked. “If we have to push it right to the bitter end, we’re talking genocide. They’ll put me up there with Hitler, Pol Pot and everyone else who thought it would be a good idea to slaughter a few million people they didn’t like. I could be condemning a billion of them to death.”

“No,” Paul said. Femala hadn’t been clear on the program for moving as many aliens down to Earth as possible, but judging from the reports, millions of aliens had already been landed in Texas and the Middle East. “They’re emptying their starship now.”

“And the remainder will be down on the planet, at our mercy,” the President said. “Do we have the right to kill them all?”

“Perhaps we can come to some accommodation,” Paul said. “Mr President, they’ve killed millions of us…and there are six billion of us. There are uncounted trillions of them out across the stars, but Earth is the only place where there are humans. We have to move now, or we will end up as slaves – or exterminated. What right do they have to survive at our expense?”

“Forty-years from now, they will paint my name with red, like they did for Bomber Harris,” the President said. He had been something of a historian in his youth before he had turned to politics. “The person who made the decision to attempt to commit genocide to save a larger number of people. Do you think that that is right?”

Paul said nothing.

“But you’re right,” the President concluded. “The attack has to be launched and…we have to try to stop them, to force them to surrender on our terms. If we don’t, the alliance, such as it is, will come crashing down and humanity’s unity will be a thing of the past. Give the orders, Colonel, and put everything in motion.”

“Yes, Mr President,” Paul said. “Will you be monitoring from the Situation Room?”

“A week,” the President said. “That’s almost a lifetime in politics. If I’m still President by that time, I’ll watch. It’s time that a President took responsibility. The buck stops here, after all.”

Chapter Forty-Three