Christopher Nuttall - Invasion

“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.”

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…