The Nelson Touch

Chapter Thirty-Three

“Major,” a voice said. “Wake up!”

Charles snapped awake instantly, one hand grabbing for the pistol he’d positioned under his makeshift pillow. It was a precaution that had served him well in the past, although — in theory — the aliens shouldn’t have been able to get through the defences surrounding the FOB. But then, they’d said the same about insurgents in the Middle East. He looked around and saw one of the Rhino’s aides standing there, looking worried.

“They picked up an emergency signal from the orbiting recon platforms,” the aide said. “The Rhino demands your immediate presence.”

“Gotcha,” Charles said. He stood, then picked up his rifle and slung it over his shoulder. The Rhino had issued strict orders that everyone was to go armed at all times, no exceptions. It was another sensible precaution, Charles had decided, after months of training together. “I’m on my way.”

The Rhino was standing in front of a bank of consoles in the emergency command vehicle, smoking a cigar that smelt faintly unpleasant. Charles saluted quickly, then swore as he saw the red icons on the display. A handful of large and evidently unfriendly starships were approaching the planet at terrifying speed.

“They came out of Tramline Three,” the Rhino said, without prompting. “We don’t have a solid lock on them at this distance, but at least one of them is either a carrier or a troopship comparable to ours.”

Charles swore. “So they’re going to attack us while the fleet’s away,” he said, sourly. “Is there any word from the Admiral?”

“Nothing,” the Rhino said. “But I wasn’t expecting to hear anything for several days.”

Charles felt cold ice clench around his heart. If the aliens had launched a counterattack, they presumably had something in mind to deal with the fleet as well as the forces on the ground, perhaps an ambush in the Target Two system. Or one group of aliens might have launched a counterattack without consulting the others; it wasn’t easy to coordinate human attacks across several star systems and everything they’d seen indicated that the aliens had the same problem.

They came out of Tramline Three, he told himself. But the fleet went through Tramline Four.

“So we prepare to repel attack,” he said, grimly. “Or can we evacuate in time?”

“Not without being caught on the hop,” the Rhino said. “Even if we abandoned everything, we’d still have to get the men back to the ships and start running. And then we’d be caught.”

Charles nodded in understanding. The transports, even the colossal American ships, were far slower than any of the alien ships. They’d be overrun and destroyed long before they made it to the tramline. No, better to fight it out on the ground than be picked off helplessly while trying to flee.

“We’ll stay near the alien cities, apart from the stay-behind teams,” the Rhino added. “It might deter them from simply smashing us from orbit, once they get control of the high orbitals.”

“They’ll certainly fire on the plasma canons,” Charles warned. “Their tactics for assaulting a defended planet might just be better than ours.”

“Maybe,” the Rhino said. “But we will see.”

He looked back down at the console, then up at Charles. “We expect to be attacked in just under three hours,” he warned. “And we may be attacked from the water too.”

Charles nodded, slowly. The aliens, having realised they were under observation, had killed all of the dolphins and destroyed most of the remote spying devices. Since then, they’d probably been preparing to take part in a counterattack when their forces started to regain the high orbitals. It was what he would have done, were the situation reversed.

“I’ll deploy my forces,” he said. “And you’d better do the same.”

“Make sure they’re in full stealth mode,” the Rhino added. “You don’t want to risk drawing fire from orbit.”

“Understood,” Charles said.

The next two hours passed in a whirlwind of activity as the ground forces prepared for the coming onslaught. The heavy plasma cannons, prepped for their first combat test, were scattered all over the shoreline, alarmingly close to the water’s edge. Others were positioned some distance inland, providing additional fire to prevent the aliens from settling into orbit and then launching shuttles or missiles towards the human bases. American tanks were carefully positioned to provide fire support for the armoured combat suits, although Charles couldn’t help noticing that most of them had been placed on automatic. The tanks simply hadn’t coped well with alien weapons.

He found himself looking up into the sky as the sun rose higher, automatically tracking pieces of space debris that were still falling into the planet’s atmosphere. Absently, he hoped the space debris would make it harder for the aliens to land, although he knew that was nothing more than wishful thinking. It hadn’t prevented the humans from landing either, had it? But the aliens might have more reason to be concerned about the planet’s biosphere than the human occupiers.

And if they blame us for rendering the planet uninhabitable, he thought coldly, how long will it be before they start doing the same to Earth and the other settled worlds?

He smiled, recalling a family legend. One of his ancestors had worked as part of the clean-up crews in 2060, sweeping dead satellites and space junk out of Earth’s orbit and transferring them to the smelters on the moon, where they had been turned into something more useful. He’d left behind a log that Charles had read, as a child; he’d noted that the space junk had simply been too dangerous to leave in place, even though they were part of history. Now, he couldn’t help wondering if the aliens would do the same. They might start building their own orbital towers, sooner or later.

His radio crackled. “Enemy ships are picking up speed,” a voice stated. “They’ll be in orbit in twenty minutes.”

“Understood,” Charles said. The data from New Russia suggested the aliens couldn’t track very low powered transmissions, particularly compressed microbursts, but they’d been warned to be careful anyway. Radiating anything that might be picked up from orbit was as good as sending a direct message to the aliens, inviting them to kill the humans on the ground. “We’ll be ready for them.”

He found himself shifting uncomfortably in his suit as he scanned the shoreline. It looked safe and tranquil, almost as exotic as the beaches he’d enjoyed during a short deployment to Kota Kinabalu, years ago. There was a shortage of women, both local and tourist, but apart from that the beach was beautiful. The waves looked surprisingly mild as they washed against the sand, nothing like the waves he’d battled during his training. But the aliens might be only a few metres away from them, watching from just underneath the water. All the simulations agreed that it might as well be completely transparent to alien eyes.

“I hate hurrying up and waiting,” someone muttered.

“Quiet,” Charles ordered. He privately agreed, but they had to maintain communications discipline. “You’ll wish it was still quiet when the shit hits the fan.”

Alerts flashed up in his HUD as the first alien starships entered orbit, only to come under fire from the plasma cannons on the ground. For a moment, he thought they could win outright, then realised that the plasma cannons weren’t doing as much damage as they had hoped. The aliens didn’t have much better armour than humanity’s, but what they did have was designed to cope with plasma weapons fire rather than anything else. It suggested, to his eyes, that the aliens might have their own internal wars as well as fights with other races. Maybe there was a second faction of aliens out there, one more friendly to humanity than the others.

“Enemy ships are falling back,” the Rhino announced. “But that was only the beginning…”

New alerts flashed up in the HUD, followed by an explosion in the distance. Charles swore under his breath as he realised that one of the plasma cannons had been taken out, with no obvious cause. Moments later, new alerts sounded; the aliens had somehow managed to get a party behind the lines, right in place to launch an attack. Charles puzzled over it for a long moment, then realised the truth.

“Sir, they used a network of underwater tunnels to get around,” he said. Once, long ago, he’d gone caving in Wales. Some of the caves had been partly underwater and downright eerie. “They might have other settlements we never even thought to look for, under the ground.”

“Not an issue at the moment,” the Rhino said. “You have incoming.”

Charles nodded as another series of alerts sounded, this time alerting his men to enemy forces advancing up towards the shoreline. Moments later, a giant mechanical crab-like monstrosity burst out of the water and advanced threateningly towards the Royal Marines. For a long moment, Charles could only stare at the construct. It reminded him of some of the attempts to make real AT-ATs, armoured vehicles that walked rather than drove. But the human race had never managed to make the concept work without creating something terrifyingly vulnerable. The aliens, on the other hand, had clearly put a great deal more thought into the concept.

It makes sense for them, he realised, as more of the giant machines appeared, their weapons already moving round to target the humans. Underwater, legs are so much more useful than wheels.

“Fire,” he ordered.

Five missiles lanced out and slammed into the alien machines. Three of them exploded into towering fireballs, two more were mildly damaged. The aliens opened fire at the same moment, firing their plasma cannons as if they were machine guns with unlimited bullets. Charles clung to the ground as blast after blast passed over his head, blazing through the vegetation and setting it alight. He wondered, as he took aim at one of the advancing monsters with his suit’s missile launcher, if the aliens wouldn’t find the fire discomforting. They needed wetter air than humanity…

He fired a pair of missiles towards the machine, then swore inwardly as he saw a second troop of vehicles emerging from the waves. Muttering commands to his men, he called down a volley of fire from the mortar emplacements and ran backwards, relying on the incoming fire to shield his men. Two suits sent distress calls, seconds before they died; the remainder made it safely to the next trench. Behind them, the alien vehicles kept moving forwards, slowly but steadily.

“They’re easy to outrun, even without the suits,” he reported. “We could probably start putting mines in their path now.”

“See to it,” the Rhino ordered. “Slow them down as much as possible.”

Charles checked the overall situation and gritted his teeth as he realised that it was rapidly spinning out of control. The aliens had launched attacks directed against every human base, even though they had to have been put together very quickly. Part of him was mildly impressed. A human force might not be able to react so quickly when taken by surprise.

He gritted his teeth as a pair of American helicopters flew overhead, unleashing missiles towards the alien vehicles. The aliens returned fire, trying to swat both the missiles and the helicopters out of the air; Charles bit down another swearword as one of the helicopters exploded in midair, while the other staggered and then plummeted down towards the ground. It crashed into one of the alien vehicles and exploded, but the alien machine kept moving, although it was clearly damaged.

It’s designed for high-pressure environments, Charles thought, as he motioned for his men to fall back again. It can shrug off anything, but a direct missile hit.

“Lay mines in its path,” he ordered, separating out his platoon into two groups. The aliens weren’t worried by small arms fire, even machine guns. Their response was always the same; a withering hail of fire, followed by a slow steady advance towards the next contact. In human terms, they were too slow to launch a proper blitzkrieg, but Charles was starting to think it didn’t matter. “Slow the bastards down!”

Two American tanks burst out of hiding and charged towards the alien vehicles, firing antitank rounds towards their weaker points. The aliens, taken by surprise, hesitated long enough to allow the Americans to land several blows before finally returning fire, trying hard to take out the tanks. One of them was ripped apart by multiple hits; the other managed to flee, crashing wildly from side to side as it was chased by a hail of plasma fire. The aliens seemed angered; their vehicles picked up speed, even though it was nothing more than a slow crawl by human standards. New alerts flashed up in the display; Charles glanced at them, then realised that the aliens were reoccupying their city.

I hope the boffins got out in time, he thought. Half of them had been outright rude to the soldiers — they seemed to believe the military had deliberately started the war — but they didn’t deserve to be alien prisoners. He’d had more than a few nightmares about the humans they’d rescued from the alien POW camp on Alien-1. And that anyone stupid enough to actually talk to the aliens was dragged out before it was too late.

“Fall back to Point Alpha,” the Rhino ordered. “Leave as many unpleasant surprises as you can as you move.”

Charles nodded, after taking another look at the display. The aliens were advancing forward, bringing more and more troops out of the water. It was clear that the humans could retreat indefinitely, but the aliens would simply overrun the plasma cannon emplacements and then call in fire from orbit. He hadn’t seen anything so strange — and yet so unbeatable — since the no-win situation he’d faced in the simulators.

“We’re on our way,” he said.

The Royal Marines joined the retreat, passing through an emplacement of antitank missiles set up by the French Foreign Legion. Charles paused long enough to share what they’d learned with the French CO, who looked grimly determined to hold his position as long as possible. Once they were nearly a kilometre away from the French position, Charles and his men slowed and started to dig another trench for themselves. They’d try to slow the aliens down while the French made their escape.

It was nearly forty minutes before the crawling alien vehicles encountered the French. The French had used the time well, Charles had to admit; they’d set up long-range guns as well as antitank rockets and smoke grenades, although the latter didn’t seem to slow the aliens down very much, if at all. Two alien crabs — the term seemed to have become adopted by the defenders — went up in colossal fireballs, the remainder pounded the French position into rubble and kept moving.

“They must have a very high-pressure interior too,” one of the analysts muttered. Charles barely heard him as he prepared for a stand. “When they’re penetrated, they explode.”

“Sounds like a bitch I once knew,” someone muttered. “She really hated it when I took my time.”

Charles ignored the byplay, concentrating instead on calling in fire from the gunners. Only direct hits seemed to inflict any damage, although one alien crab had come to a halt after a shell had smashed one of its legs. The aliens seemed to be hesitating, rather than advancing… and then they unleashed a new weapon of their own. Charles had only a few seconds to recognise it as a long-range gun before the shell exploded somewhere to the rear.

“They’ve set them up along the beach,” the Rhino observed. “Our gunners will have to deal with them.”

“They must have stolen the idea from New Russia,” Sergeant Jackson said.

“They probably developed gunpowder on their own,” Charles disagreed. He honestly couldn’t see how the aliens had reached into space without developing gunpowder. Maybe they’d had projectile weapons themselves, then gave them up when they realised that plasma weapons were much more effective. But they couldn’t use plasma weapons underwater. “They just kept them in reserve for when they needed them again.”

The alien gunners didn’t seem to be very accurate at first, but they learned quickly. Charles took advantage of the sudden pause to strengthen his position, then plan his retreat to the east of the advancing aliens. The alien crabs were spreading out now, allowing his men a chance to slip between them and cut them off from the water. If their guesses about alien psychology were correct, the aliens would react badly to the challenge. They might even swing around and go after the Marines.

They don’t seem to have thought of battlesuits for themselves, he thought, as the aliens closed in on his position. Will they be able to operate them if they try?

He pushed the thought aside as the aliens opened fire. Brilliant streaks of light blazed over his head, then started to narrow down towards their targets. The Royal Marines returned fire at the same instant, launching five missiles towards the alien crabs. One exploded so violently it smashed the legs of its neighbour, the others kept moving forward with deadly intent. Charles sucked in his breath, then barked commands. As one, the Royal Marines took to their heels and ran east.

“They’re not coming after us,” he said. The aliens couldn’t hope to catch the suits, but he’d expected them to try. “We’re clear.”

“Then cut them off,” the Rhino said. “Good luck.”

Charles nodded as the Marines changed course, running back towards the shoreline. The aliens were uncomfortable on dry land, which offered the chance to make them more uncomfortable. Warfare was a test of wills as well as technology and weapons; if the aliens believed themselves to be cut off, they might delay their attack on the forward bases.

But if they were wrong, Charles knew, it wouldn’t be long before the aliens cleared enough of the plasma cannons to allow the orbital craft to move in for the kill.