* 06:31, E-6-2, RAPID FIRE, B-R1 Missile Truck: Copy Onion, we have Slammers
* 06:32, E-6-9, HAMMER, B-R1 Missile Truck: Echo-six-one, this is Echo-six-niner. Lost our F22. Uhh, flying blind here. Request you push your link.
* 06:32, E-6-1, BLAZING ONION, F22: Copy Echo-six-niner. Sorry to hear. Negative on the link. We’re midnight with Command link function. Following up with Echo-six-two. E-6-2, this is Onion. Johnny, can you push a link to Echo-six-niner?
* 06:33, E-6-9, HAMMER, B-R1: Echo-six-two, this Echo-six-niner. Affirmative on Link. OPEN COMMS FROM HAMMER: Bill, let’s not waste these hypes. Bullseye is 185, 6 miles, 10,000 feet. All hypes away. And out. Winchester.
* 06:33, E-6-1, BLAZING ONION: Hammer, this is Onion. I’ve got visual. No joy, fly shot them all. Sorry pal. We’re all Winchester, and nastiness coming our way. Let’s get out of Dodge. Going to move-
RUN FILE. A swarm of flies began to rake Squadron Six with rail fire. E-6-1, Blazing Onion, Captain Dave “Edge” Edgington, took defensive action, heading to his left in a spiraling decent to gain speed and lateral distance from his attackers. Edge leveled off, flying in the weeds (very low altitude). Edge had also received the link that was pushed out by E-6-2, Rapid Fire.
He watched with dismay as the squadron dots on his screen flashed out. At least some were able to eject judging by the punch-out indicators. His F22 was no longer aerodynamic, having numerous holes and gouges, and he was out of munitions anyway. He stayed in the weeds and eased his plane toward the designated safe zone for refueling and rearming. Hopefully another aircraft was available. This one wouldn’t be back up in the sky any time soon. END FILE.
***
+ BEGIN TIMELINE DROP. This is a Timeline Project drop.
NOTE: This is a composition drop derived from several sources using AI synthesis journaling.
1. Compilation of Angel Wings communications and flight recorders.
2. A recording file obtained from Darkside Base. The nest queen (La Habra Sector ship) sent a flight recording for the amusement of the High Queen. The recording was labeled: Levity for Her Majesty, The Flying Dome of Ahaam.
3. The cockpit recording from a bug flier.
The fly that made it through the hype attack from E-6-9, Hammer, sped past the relatively slow B-R1 Missile Truck, decelerated, and took position upside down, canopy to canopy. The bug made an odd gesture, pumping its head up and down. Captain Avery Melbourne intuitively understood the challenge and replied with an appropriate hand gesture. She hit the throttle and pulled up hard, causing an impact with the smaller air ship.
The fly spun out of control for a few seconds. Then the bug slipped to the rear of the B-R1 and slowly cut Hammer in half with rail fire. The bug used its “hard” claw to scratch another hash mark on the cabin wall. After that, he brought the hands of his head feelers together in an arch and began to tap his paired fingers over and over. One, two, three, four. Over and over he tapped, in a neurotic tap dance, as he scanned the skies with his optical scope.
There! Another flying slug. Throttle, pulse cannon, explosion. Hash mark. So easy. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. There! Far away. Another large craft with a dome on top. It almost looked like a Dome of Ahaam. Could it be? He voiced his wonder at the discovery. The bug flew off for a close look at AWACS, East Group, and the radar dome that apparently looked like a Dome of Ahaam.
AWACS EAST GROUP: “Attention, this is AWACS East Group. We’re on slide to avoid approaching fly.”
As the AWACS aircraft moved off, the overwatch F22, Body Guard Two, moved in to interdict the fly.
BODY GUARD TWO: “East, this is Body Guard Two. Missiles away.”
The bug left the defensive work to the onboard computer as he moved with intent to evade the F22 and get a closer look at the Dome of Ahaam on the other Earth craft.
BODY GUARD TWO: “East, we were negative on the missiles. The fly must have pulled 20 Gs. Reset to intercept. Trying cannon.”
The bug slowed his fly to pace the AWACS craft and marvel at the sight. How could it be, a symbol for the Dome of Ahaam, on a human airship? A communication followed on from the bugs Nest Ship: Stupid Wassel
***
RUN FILE. Throughout the night, as the Long Beach ship was being pounded, the 1Xth Marine Expeditionary Unit landed their OCBs
The carrier task group had fared better than the air force or Rolling Thunder, their tracking systems benefiting from the greater travel distance required of the enemy. With the distance, they could maintain better fire lock. Even at that, every ship had sustained significant damage. The group was under way, moving out an additional 100 nautical miles, hoping more open water would discourage fly attacks. Though they were still operating, even the naval air sorties had slowed because of attrition.
With the evacuation now in the secure hands of area first responders and army troops, the Marine battalions were ordered to move to forward shield positions near each nest ship. They were tasked with stopping any further bug incursions until the evacuations were complete. For Angel Wings, the situation in the air continued to deteriorate as the pilots tried to manage the chaotic movements of the enemy flies. It was time to call a close to Angel Wings. Really, it was past time to put an end to the disaster that had come to Angelic Response. END FILE.
* 06:40, AWACS NORTH GROUP: All squadrons. This is AWACS North Group to all squadrons. Directive. Separate. Repeat, disengage from the enemy and rendezvous at your designated safe zones. *BREAK* MC Group Command, this is AWACS North Group, Marines you will have air support from the carrier task groups.
* 06:45, PC-2, MARINE COMPANY BATTALION, Rosemead open comms <*open comms due to technical error*>: Still no bugs. Likely as not, they got the message with the artillery. What a mess, bug parts all over the place. Let me borrow your glasses. Yeah, a mess. Rolling Thunder is moving out. If it stays this quiet, the bugs are going to come out for a look-see. It’s still noisy on the other side of the hill. Air force.
* 06:45, PC-2, MARINE COMPANY BATTALION, ROSEMEAD COMMAND: This is Colonel Holloway. Cut the chatter. All troops, comms check. Radio silence. Be alert!
* 06:46, MC ROSEMEAD COMMAND: Rosemead is active! M-777 howitzers, be alert. Ready drone packs. Stinger group, watch for flies.
RUN FILE. Two 10-member bug squads emerged from the nest ship. They pumped their heads up and down at the soldiers. Two flies came in low from the west and landed, returning from a carrier run, damaged. The bugs ran up to the fliers, helped the pilots out, and started to do diagnostics.
Four drone packs buzzed in and detonated. The bugs dies instantly. A brief barrage of howitzer shells from the M-777s rained down on the main ship. Still shielded, the barrage had no effect. The Marines decided it would be best to wait for more vulnerable targets. There wasn’t much time left anyway. In ten minutes they would move back into Rosemead and help to guard the rear lines of the last evacuees.
The EXFIL order came too late. Pulse laser cannons from the Rosemead nest ship powered up. At that same moment the other three nest ships also opened fir
e. The Marines took cover in their foxholes as pulsed fire continued, directed at the troop positions, for nearly a minute. Air temperature in the vicinity rose constantly.
The transport vehicles exploded. Vegetation flared. The sandy soil turned to glass. A soldier couldn’t handle the heat any longer and jumped up, hoping to make a run for it. His battle buddy grabbed at him, only to be yanked to the side by the effect of the gruesome explosive vaporization of his friend. It was only a matter of moments before the entire Marine Expeditionary Unit had joined their companion in death. Angelic Response came to an end. END FILE.
***
BUGBLAST
The bugs are being cautious with high-tech, commercial, and industrial infrastructure; satellites, power plants, any industrial facilities. That has made it more difficult for them to prosecute the invasion. There are times, such as the battle for Los Angeles, they totally overwhelm our military. At other times, our forces excel. The bugs seem surprised at our resolve. Okay, that’s just the feeling I get.
People are smart, especially when under pressure. We learn and we adapt. The science guys have already built what they hope will be a game-changer bomb. It’s a nuclear device. But it is “clean” for a nuke. The yield is larger than a standard tactical field nuke but lower than a full-sized strategic nuke. And like I said, cleaner. That’s an imperative. The bomb is just right, as in Goldilocks. The Goldilocks bomb. Not too big. Not too small. Just right. The military managed to take out a mother ship with one of those bombs.
Mr. T somehow obtained the mission recordings from the Goldilocks operation, the first use of that new bomb. It’s quite the crash-course I’ve had in military-speak the couple of days. Included with the recordings was a file that had other information, such as the OPORD directive. We were able to review the ROE (Rules of Engagement); Target Intelligence information; the general Air Order of Battle; Preplanned Support. Roll was especially excited. He has already listened to the recordings three or four times.
Grandad wants to continue adding outside information to the Journal. He says it can become a comprehensive report on the war effort. I, for one, didn’t think keeping a little journal would be so complicated. It’s good practice though, so don’t think I’m complaining. Well, I might be complaining just a little bit.
The Journal has bloated along with all sorts of details to manage. Be careful with sequential ordering. Maintain an accurate timeline. Add documentary reports. Communal is adding information, so I’ve got to keep an eye on them. Sometimes I find detailed information that I didn’t include. It’s good stuff. But I’m uneasy. There isn’t always a clear identification of the source. Here’s Grandad, I’ll ask him.
“Communal is adding content, including conversations, to the Journal.”
“Is the data provided by Communal, including any dialogue, accurate?”
“It is. I think it is.”
“Really, we want the journal to detail the truth of things, right? The more information the better as long as it’s accurate?”
“I guess so. Communal can read our minds, can’t they?”
“Well, probably, though only to a limited extent. There does seem to be an interface between Communal and the nanite systems involved with our gifts. That sort of interface is nothing new. Brain to brain interface, and even brain to computer interface, has been well documented. I was privy, back in the day, to a good deal of interface research.
“I remember a group, doing development work early in the process, it was quite some time back, around 2015 or so. They were from the University of Washington and made good headway with human/machine interface. A few years later another group completed a successful network of three human brains. Three people were able to share thoughts. The thought sharing was very rudimentary. But DARPA took a keen interest at that point. You don’t need to worry about Communal, Dear-heart.”
I wonder why we don’t need to worry about Communal, who some might designate a rogue and powerful AI? That’s interesting. Fine then, Grandad’s the AI expert. I’ll quit deleting things. I know it’s you though, Communal. Eyes and ears all over the place. Security cameras. Computers. Smart TVs. Passive phone speakers. Nanite array spybots. Satellite communication arrays. And reading our minds. You’re almost everywhere, aren’t you? And for me it’s more and more dialogue and outside reports, less and less journaling. My new title can be Keeper of the Dialogue. Uggg. It bugs me. Back to Bugblast.
***
+ BEGIN TIMELINE DROP. Drop by Viz.
Note: A disclosure.
This isn’t a science journal or a strict military journal. It’s hard enough trying to run and keep up with all that’s going on and make sure the important information gets into the Journal. Seriously, I am often, literally, running along and journaling. The science stuff is mostly correct. True, I should task the AIs, or at least Albert (my personal AI), to double check and suggest corrections. Especially when I’m trying to keep up with Rock and Roll, and all their chatter.
The problem is, the AIs are so stinking picky. On top of that, truth be told, I’m not sure Albert is completely sane.
Anyway, the Journal is too general to get into a lot of technical stuff. Hey, if you want to take the time to review the AI corrections and make any changes, you go for it, baby. Sorry if that sounds a little testy. I’m up late memorizing operations data. And, evidently, I’m a little cranky.
It’s like this. For the next op, which is coming up tomorrow, it has a Paris designation. Paris is just code talk. But I have to know code information for up to twelve Paris iterations. And I have to absolutely, for sure, remember all 12 code networks. And I’m not allowed to rely on Albert for that. It was necessary to memorize all of it. That’s why I’m sitting here thinking about all this when I should have already found my bed.
What’s that Para? I didn’t need to wait until the last-minute to review the Paris codes? You’re sitting right there doing the same thing! And if you say something like, you get what you get so don’t pitch a fit. Well, I am going to... Anyway, let’s leave it at that. I’m done for the night.
It’s like all the Rock and Roll stuff. I have the Journal filter their technical talk. I do that using an algorithm specifically designed to translate their yacking, toning it down to an elementary level. Half the time they’re spouting off lines and lines of equations to get their point across. And every year it gets worse. If I’m not careful, this could become a math journal, for goodness sakes. END TIMELINE DROP. +
***
Bugblast. That’s what they called the first mission to destroy a mother ship, a nest ship, on the ground. It certainly was an appropriate name for the op. We only had access to audio recordings. And the quality was terrible. There was heavy background interference, noise, throughout the entire recording. I worked through and did my best to capture what was being said. Roll helped.
There was a lot of... What’s that military talk called Roll? There was a lot of military brevity language. The pilots use this shorthand way of talking. It can be confusing if you’re not used to it. Ops command gave the pilots a lot of leeway on the mission. The pilots obviously knew each other from prior missions and used their individual pilot-handles a lot.
Our guys exploited a sensor weakness noticed by fighter pilots on several occasions, increasing the chance of a successful mission. The weakness is at the drive section of the nest ships. To be honest, I doubt they could ever repeat a similar operation. The bugs aren’t dumb enough to commit their flies in the same manner allowed during this operation. Also, shortly after the mission, the bugs set up a device to close the sensor gap. Still, we are losing the war. Our guys need some wins; we need to try new strategies. Hopefully the bugs will keep making mistakes.
SEE THE JOURNAL AID SECTION for a more thorough treatment of the Bugblast mission. It’s exciting. Pages and pages of military talk. Full disclosure, there could be some translation errors based on our interpretation of the wording, due to all that heavy interference. Or, here is a summ
ary version, by Viz.
***
OPERATION BUGBLAST. Summary by Viz. The military of the United States of America pulled out all stops in a successful mission directed against an enemy mother ship, also called a nest ship, positioned in North Dakota. That ship landed in the middle of nowhere, evidently to do some sort of mining.
Mission aircraft included tried and true Fifth Generation aircraft along with less well-known high-tech craft. The shooter, military brevity language for the aircraft designated to deliver the main ordnance, was a relatively new addition to the air force. That was the extremely stealthy B-21 Raider, only entering service within the last few years. It was tasked with delivery of a specially built and relatively clean nuclear weapon capable of defeating the shielding of an enemy nest ship. The weapon was colorfully named the Goldilocks Bomb, since it was “just right” for its intended purpose, bug nest elimination.
A number of support craft joined the B21. There was the venerable F22 Raptor, tasked to deal with enemy fighter aircraft, generally called flies. True, the F22 is an aging platform. Aging but still amazing, especially with all the new gadgetry under the hood. Tethered to the Raptors were the new and devastating Stalker drones. Each F22 had control of 6 Stalker drones. There were also two B-1R Missile Trucks capable of delivering enormous firepower in the form of long-range missiles.
A special feature was the arrival of several X-37C-plus Space Planes equipped with HELLADS-2, a second-gen directed energy weapon system adjusted for offensive deployment.
Shhhhhh. This will be our little secret. This reporter has on good authority, there was a surprise visit by one of the space planes developed from the XS-1 program. It is a manned space plane now designated N-1, Nemesis One. That wasn’t even mentioned in the actual mission report. The Goldilocks group destroyed the nest and all enemy fliers. There were no serious injuries to our brave military personnel. Summary by Viz.
Battle for Earth Page 8