Invasion

Chapter Forty-Three

It was impossible, both sides had concluded, for an area the size of the Red Zone to be sealed off completely. Defences, barricades and other surprises could be avoided by any advancing force, so both sides pulled back and skirmished along the borders, rather than glaring at each other over a fence. The main alien forces were held back a kilometre into the Red Zone, perfectly positioned to intercept any detected force crossing No Man’s Land, while patrols moved up and down the line, watching for human insurgents. Their crews were getting better at spotting human infiltrators and reacting to them…

The Marines weren’t trying to hide. The oversized platoon had carefully charted out the alien patrol routes and, once the last patrol had passed, had slipped into position and deployed to meet the coming patrol. As soon as it showed itself, the Marines opened fire, slamming a pair of Javelin missiles into the alien infantry vehicles, while their snipers picked off the alien infantry as they dismounted and struggled to return fire. The handful of remaining aliens crouched behind the remains of their vehicles, screaming desperately for help, while expecting the humans to break contact and retreat, as they had done several times before. The humans had learned that maintaining contact brought helicopters and alien tanks rapidly to the scene, which meant certain death, but this time the Marines didn’t run. As the alien helicopters swooped down, two of the Marines opened fire with Stinger missiles, blowing both of the helicopters out of the sky. They crashed down, their explosions providing cover for five of the Marines, who got into firing position and dispatched the remaining aliens.

The Sergeant made a bird call and started to retreat. The others followed, two of them pausing to rig up a pair of grenades to the remains of the alien IFVs, just to give the aliens pause. The alien engineers could rebuild some of the vehicles, as American vehicles had been repaired in Iraq, and while there wasn’t time to smash them completely beyond repair, they could be booby-trapped. The onrushing alien unit, almost the size of a Marine Company, wouldn’t have a chance to catch them, but would have to spend it’s time looking for threats. It looked like a serious attack, one alarming enough to cause the aliens to rush reinforcements to the threatened area… and take them away from elsewhere. The Marines melted away into the darkness, leaving the aliens behind…

“You want me to do what?”

“Get into the alien spaceport and steal one of their shuttles,” Captain Andrew Stocker said. Brent had read the paper report on him — it wasn’t something that could be sent over the military communications network, just in case the aliens had gained access and were reading everything passed along the wires — and had been impressed, but at the same time he would have preferred the remainder of SF34. They might have been reduced, but they were used to working together. “We already have the pilots” — he nodded to a pair of humans who might have been wearing BDUs, but didn’t look like soldiers — “and some inside help.”

Brent stared. The two aliens stared back at him. It had been the closest he’d ever been to an unmasked alien and his instincts had screamed kill! The very concept of the aliens turning on their own kind surprised him, but was it really that unusual? Humans always saw other groups as monolithic, but he’d had enough experience to know that that was very rarely the case and you could always find someone who would turn on their fellows, for money or protection or women or just for revenge. The hunt for terrorists wouldn’t have been as effective without so many terrorists being willing to turn on their friends and allies; honour, it seemed, was alien to them.

He looked up at Stocker. “Are you sure they can be trusted?”

“We’re part of the American Clan now,” the lead alien said. The sibilant voice sent chills down Brent’s spine. He hadn’t realised how much the mask altered their voices. “You welcomed us when others would kill us.”

You don’t know the half of it, Brent thought, remembering how many attacks on the aliens had been motivated by a desire for revenge. The two aliens might not know it, but they were luckier than they deserved to be, really; they’d been recovered by someone smart enough to understand the value of prisoners. The aliens were normally unwilling to allow themselves to be taken prisoner and tended to keep fighting when a human unit would have been trying to surrender.

“Very well,” Brent said, finally. “How do you intend to get into the spaceports? They’re the most heavily guarded places in the entire Red Zone. The collaborators who go into them only do so under heavy guard.” He felt a moment of pleasure at that, because it meant that some of the collaborators the aliens had accepted had turned out to be rather untrustworthy. “Perhaps if we…”

He looked down at the aliens. “With their help, it might be possible to get in, but then… how do we reach the spacecraft?”

A thought blossomed out in his mind. “Perhaps it can be done after all,” he said. “How long do we have to make preparations?”

“Three days,” Stocker said. He nodded towards one of his men, who was carrying a heavy backpack. “If worst comes to worst, we have one hell of a surprise for the aliens here.”

“Good,” Brent said. Three days meant that there wouldn’t be time to call upon the remainder of his people. They’d have to stay on the sidelines for this battle. “Tell me the rest of the plan and then let’s start working on the practicalities.”

The next hour was one of the strangest in his life… and that was saying something, considering all he’d done since joining the army and being streamlined into Special Forces. The two aliens might not have known specifics — it was clear that interrogation was a common feature of their treatment of prisoners — but they were a gold mine of data on how the aliens reacted when faced with specific situations. Their training, Brent wasn’t surprised to discover, had been almost entirely theoretical, although the occupation of Texas had rapidly sorted out the alien infantrymen who wouldn’t, or couldn’t, learn. Their security measures had been limited to preventing humans from breaking into their complexes, not their fellows, a blindspot that Brent intended to exploit. If they could cause enough panic…

“It should work,” he conceded, finally. It wasn’t as if there was much time left, after all; once enough aliens had landed, they wouldn’t need collaborators any more. They might decide to start expanding the Red Zone, or perhaps they would simply slaughter all of the remaining humans. The two aliens had reacted with horror to the concept, but the humans hadn’t been responding well to The Truth and Brent rather suspected that the aliens had a time limit. If humans didn’t become Truthful — he smiled thinly at the pun — they could probably be legally massacred. “Go get some sleep. When the shit hits the fan, we want to be ready.”

Three days later, the insurgents were lurking along the remains of a road. The aliens swept it regularly for IEDs and other surprises, assuming correctly that the insurgents would mine the road just to cause a little disruption and chaos, but this time there was a different surprise. The truckers working for the aliens were transporting alien supplies from the spaceport, but heading back empty. The aliens didn’t bother to provide any proper escort for the returning vehicles, knowing that the insurgents knew that there was nothing in the trucks, and that the truckers knew that their families were under guard. It had only taken a pair of executions to get the message across.

“I’ve got an IFV and two outriders,” Jack muttered, from his position. The aliens had provided just enough escorts to make matters complicated. Brent was almost relieved; if there had been no escorting units, he would have smelled a rat, and if it had been heavily escorted, mounting the attack would have been impossible. “Orders, sir?”

“Take out the IFV as soon as it gets within range,” Brent muttered back. The other insurgent units in the area should have received their orders to stay well clear and prepare for the assault on the spaceport, but not all of the units were under direct command, from Fort Hood or anyone. There were too many loners out there taking pot shots at aliens and their collaborators. Like most advantages, it was a disadvantage at the most irritating times. “Matthew, Luke, are you ready?”

“Yes, sir,” the sibilant alien voice said. They’d chosen new human names, for reasons that made sense to them and little to him, but it was still difficult to tell the difference between them. “We’re ready.”

The LAW lit up the night as it was fired directly into the IFV. The alien vehicle, caught by surprise, exploded into a billowing fireball, while the trucks skidded to a halt, knowing that it was useless to run. Some of the truckers would probably be wishing that they’d been allowed to keep their weapons, just to save their vehicles from the insurgents and their families from the aliens, but others would almost welcome the attack. The aliens dismounted rapidly from the outriders, firing into the darkness, only to be picked off quickly and efficiently by the snipers. So far, at least, the attack had been textbook perfect.

Brent winced. Now came the real challenge. “Follow me,” he snapped, and ran towards the lead truck. The driver was already opening the doors, although it wasn’t clear if he wanted to fight or beg for mercy. “You, what are you carrying?”

“Nothing,” the driver said. Brent looked into his eyes and read his story; his family hostages, his truck used against his country… and the relief that came with knowing that there was no longer any need to make the terrible choice. “They’re all empty.”

“Just get back into the driving seat,” Brent snapped. They ran through the remaining seven trucks, checking that they were empty — the aliens had ambushed them before with ‘empty’ vehicles — and then returned to the original cab. “You need to drive on to the spaceport, understand?”

The driver didn’t. “But…”

“But nothing,” Brent snapped. He drew his knife and held it to the driver’s throat. It would have been much easier if one or all of the drivers had been insurgent sources, but there had been no way to make sure of that. “They’re going to think you’re in with us, so do as I tell you and your family will have a chance to live, understand?”

“…Yes,” the driver said, finally.

“Good,” Brent said. He looked across at Luke. “Do your stuff.”

Luke put the alien radio, recovered from one of the outriders, to his mouth and started to talk. Brent had never heard the alien language before, apart from a handful of shouts from dying aliens, and merely listening to it made him shiver. No wonder the aliens were so confident of their security; human mouths simply couldn’t make the same sounds, no matter how hard they tried. The die was cast now, whatever else happened; the aliens would know that at least one of them had been taken prisoner and had gone over to the human side.

The driver blinked as Luke finished speaking. “What did he say?”

Luke’s voice was softer than normal. “I told them that we’d been attacked, but that we’d beaten the attackers off and the survivors got into the trucks,” he said. The driver gave the alien a sidelong look as he put the truck into gear and moved back onto the road. “They should buy it long enough to reach the spaceport.”

“All the bullet holes will be very convincing,” Brent agreed. It was a shame they couldn’t risk a radio transmission — he wanted to check in with the rest of his team — but he was prepared to move. If the assault on the spaceport went in as planned — and, all of a sudden, it seemed like the stupidest idea he’d ever had — they would have their chance. “I’m sorry about the danger, but…”

“Man, if you can do something about my family, I’d help you blow the spaceport up myself,” the driver said. “How much explosives have you put in the trucks?”

Brent smiled, but said nothing. A pair of alien helicopters flew past, probably examining them, but much to his relief, they didn’t insist on the convoy pausing for inspection. He would have done that, if he’d been in command, but that wouldn’t have been safe. The priority would be to get the trucks back to a properly secured location and then search them, just in case. The spaceport was the closest secured location… and, although the aliens didn’t know, it was about to become a great deal less safe.

“There,” the driver said. “That’s their spaceport.”

Brent wasn’t sure what he had expected, but images taken by insurgents had revealed that the spaceport had once been a private airfield, one that had been used by several large corporations and their personnel for some reason. The aliens had overrun it during the first landings, repaired it — after having bombed it from orbit with a KEW during their arrival — and turned it into a spaceport. Even now, in the darkness, Brent could see several alien shuttles climbing up into space.

“They must trust their pilots,” he remarked to Luke, as he slipped into a hiding place. The aliens had two fences surrounding the spaceport and, unless he missed his guess, they would be shown into the first, but held there until they were checked out. “Has there ever been a collision?”

“Not as far as I know,” Luke said. He made a complex signal with his fingers and the alien guards waved them through. “We’re committed now, boss.”

“Yes,” Brent said, taking the risk of looking around. Luke was right; they weren’t in a good position at all, defence wise. The trucks were coming to a halt now, but as soon as the aliens searched them, they would be discovered. “We are…”

The first mortars fired as one, hurling shells over the fence and into the guard posts. A spread of missiles followed, blasting guard towers and alien vehicles alike, shredding alien defences as if they were made of paper. A high-pitched noise started to echo out over the complex as the aliens responded to the attack; for a long moment, they took their eyes off the trucks.

“Move,” Brent snapped, and jumped out of the cab. The remainder of the force was already deploying, halfway inside the alien defences and storming the remaining guard posts. They had to be taken quickly, before the aliens could react, or they would all be caught in a killing zone. “Luke, with me!”

The Rangers had been cooped up in Fort Hood — if one could call that cooped up — for three months. They attacked the aliens directly, smashing through the guards and securing the entrance, throwing it open for the remainder of the insurgent force outside. Brent ignored it, keeping his group together and looking for their target, an alien ship sitting on the tarmac, waiting for permission to take out.

He keyed his radio quickly. “Take out the command centre, now,” he snapped. One way or another, the cat was firmly out of the bag. A moment later, a shell from a mortar crashed down on the former air traffic control building, shattering it and bringing it down in a wave of bricks. “The pilots, with me!”

The aliens didn’t seem to need NASA’s massive hangers and launch frameworks. Their craft needed as little preparation as a helicopter; the only sign of anything that might be needed for the launch was a small moveable stairwell, like one from a major airport. He ran towards it, keeping his head down as alien forces responded to the attack, praying under his breath that they weren’t seen. By now, the insurgents would be attacking as many of the alien bases and antiaircraft sites as they could, trying to suppress them all… and risking everything in the attack. If they lost this time, the insurgency would have shot it’s bolt, at least for a few months. He threw himself up the stairs and into the small alien cabin, discarding his weapon and drawing his knife as he swarmed up into the cockpit.

One of the aliens turned to draw a weapon with astonishing speed, but Brent threw his knife, neatly punching it through the alien’s head. They’d thought that they were safe, he realised; none of them had worn armour. The other two were stunned, staring at the humans bursting into their craft, and were quickly killed. Their bodies were moved down to the cabin below while the pilots jumped into the seats and started work.

Brent leaned forward. “Are you sure that you can fly this thing?”

“If I can’t, we’re all about to die,” Thomas Pearson shouted back. His hands danced across the alien system. “We worked endlessly on the captured ship, but do you know how complex this is?”

Brent glanced down at his watch. “No, but if we don’t move now, we’ll lose our window,” he snapped. The aliens were counterattacking in strength now, driving away the imprudent insurgents… and it wouldn’t be long before they realised that their shuttle had been boarded. “Move!”

“I am declaring an emergency,” the pilot said, in a glacial tone. “Sit down, now, and brace yourself!”

Brent sat. A moment later, he felt as if the weight of the world had suddenly come down on him.

“We’re on our way,” Pearson said. Brent could only wince under the pressure. The pilot seemed all too happy about it. “We’re on our way to space.”