by Bob Blink
The magnitude of the blast if any one of the bombs survived to do its job, let alone all three, was certainly excessive, but it was a very large facility with unknown protective and defensive measures. They wanted to take their best shot on the first attempt to take the place out, fearing that later attempts, which would have to be left to the Americans, would be much more difficult once the aliens were alerted to the fact they were under attack.
The attack on the Earth site in the Western Sahara was performed by a different team, but with the timing coordinated with the team on the moon as close as reasonable, but without the precision required between those three launches. For this task, two of the newest Russian missiles, the Sarnat, known as the Satan-2 to NATO, was launched from their site in Plesetsk. The missiles, with a ten thousand kilometer range could easily strike the target from the Russian launch center. Carrying fifteen two-Megaton hypersonic MIRV warheads each, the makers of the weapon claimed a single vehicle could lay waste to an area the size of Texas. The missile would dump all of the warheads from both vehicles into the small area where the base was located. Overkill? Hopefully, but once again, one didn't know what the reaction capability of this adversary might be. As backup, they would have a pair of submarines, each with sixteen of their Bolava ICBM's prepared for launch. Each of these missiles carried ten, 160 Kiloton MIRV warheads, so a great number of nuclear weapons could be rapidly deployed. If this turned out to be insufficient to the task, they'd have to accept the aliens had a defense and technology that man was simply not going to overcome.
The Chinese planned on using Cruise missiles for their task, each launched from a portable land launcher. They were keenly aware that any failure to take out the target would almost certainly result in massive reprisals, and they preferred to have their secretive launch sites remain secret against the need for a later backup plan. They would be using three of the supersonic DH-2000A cruise missiles, launched from vehicles hundreds of kilometers apart insuring the target was under attack from multiple directions. The weapon was an upgrade to the DF-10A missile, which in turn was based on the original CJ-10A (Long Sword) design.
Beijing could not help but be aware that the distance between the capital city and the Mongolia site the aliens had chosen was not that great when one considered the amount of nuclear firepower that was about to be unleashed, but there seemed no options, and they would hope for the best. All of the senior people were in the process of being relocated elsewhere to underground secure facilities in the event of an undesirable result from the attack.
As a backup, thirty of the country's most modern warplanes were dispatched toward the Mongolian target, each loaded with four of the largest nuclear missiles they could carry. The three cruise missiles represent three powerful nuclear warheads, but it was always possible that this enemy would have the means to destroy them before they were able to reach the intended target.
Much like the choreographed launch of the Russians, the three different launches were initiated at the required times by the three different teams at the widely separated locations. All launches went off as planned, the big transport vehicles that supported the heavy missiles shuddering as the massive weights were released, their paint burned by the exhaust, but fully capable of being reloaded with another missile and used again.
The aliens on the moon were just a bit late to respond. Whether their systems were less capable than expected, or whether they had been overly complacent and the attack was a complete surprise catching them unprepared, no one would know. They spotted the missile coming in from above, and fired something at it as it drove out of the sky toward its detonation point. Whatever they fired wasn't a projectile, nor a missile, nor some kind of advanced ray weapon. The battle would show that the aliens had no magical ray weapons, nor any impenetrable barriers that would protect them. Whatever the weapon was, it proved very effective however, and when the bright stream of light marking its path intersected the incoming Russian weapon, the missile with its super powerful nuclear bomb simply vaporizing on contact. There was no explosion. One moment the missile was there, speeding down toward the base in the crater, and then it wasn't.
Seemingly late, the aliens fired again at the two silent attackers coming in from the sides. At the same time, thirty-six of the larger ships rose swiftly into the black skies of the moon, reaching for altitude and distance from the incoming threat. None had time to board their full crews, and not all had time to reach a safe distance from the base.
The first of the two low orbit missiles vanished just like the first, less than a second before it would have triggered its explosion. On the third missile the aliens were late, or there was a minor anomaly with their defensive system. The missile wavered, but instead of vanishing like its kin, the great Tsar bomb triggered.
The strange barrier that had hidden the alien site from view glowed fiercely white for a fraction of a second, but whatever it did to control the normal light that impinged on it, it was unable to handle the power of the fifty megaton nuclear explosion. The miniature sun that formed over the Fermi Crater blasted through the barrier. One moment it was there, and like the missiles the aliens had destroyed, the next it wasn't. Neither was the base, the ships, or any aliens that had been there. Instead there was a newly forming crater in the basin, this one made by mankind. Fortunately, being a fusion bomb, the radiation pollution wouldn't be as severe as it might have been. The departing alien ships were caught in the fringes of the powerful explosion. Half a dozen of the thirty-six that survived the blast and were able to escape into orbit were damaged to varying degrees by the exploding missile.
Back on Earth, the two alien sites under attack had become aware of the fact they had incoming threats. None of the human attackers had any idea whether the moon had warned them, or whether the sites had detected the threats on their own. The Sarnat missiles had deployed their warheads, so now thirty independent warheads were en route to the Western Sahara site. Using the same weapon that had been employed on the moon, shot after shot reduced the threat count at a surprising rate. But apparently the base had never anticipated a threat of such a magnitude, or there was another system malfunction, unlikely given the sophistication of the aliens, and the firing stopped. Simultaneously, the largest of the ships which had been located in the center of the site began to rise from the ground, silently, but smoothly. It had reached an altitude of three hundred feet when the surviving MIRV warheads arrived and detonated.
Any question about the invulnerability of the alien ships to nuclear weapons was immediately answered. The much smaller facility and the departing ship were engulfed in nuclear fire, disappearing as easily as any Earth-built warships would have in the same circumstances. The Western Sahara base ceased to exist.
The Mongolian base had also detected the incoming threats from the Chinese. With only three incoming vehicles, they were able to easily destroy the closing weapons systems without any damage to themselves. However, they either knew what happened on the moon and to the Sahara bases, or had spotted the rapidly closing Chinese Air Force, and aware that they were facing weapons that posed a real threat, decided to leave while it was possible. The large ship from the site's center, clearly the controlling ship with all personnel, rose from the ground, cleared the still-existing barrier which provided no resistance to their departure, and started skyward at an ever increasing rate. Limited in the atmosphere to a maximum speed, it was still considerably faster than the approaching warplanes and the approaching missiles. Fifteen nuclear tipped missiles fell short of their target, and were destroyed by the on-board safety which destroyed the warhead before it could trigger uselessly and spread the blast and radiation around the countryside. The radioactive material in the warhead was spread over a considerable area, and while radioactive, U235 wasn't that dangerously radioactive compared to the fission products it would have created upon detonation. It was the lesser of evils. The alien ship quickly rose out of sight.
Realizing that their DH200A cruise missi
les had failed, the Chinese military commander ordered two of their Dongfeng DF-41 ICBM missiles to be launched, once again from portable launches rather than a fixed launch site. Each DF-41 carried ten, five megaton warheads, and all impacted without resistance on the now unoccupied and unprotected Mongolia base. The unnecessary attack was one hundred percent effective at eliminating the base.
Chapter 28
One of the concerns raised about the attack was how to measure the success of the various devices being thrown at the aliens. This was especially true on the moon where there were no satellites to examine the ground around Fermi Crater after the explosions, and even if there had been, orbit examination of the alien ground sites had proven extremely ineffective in the past. On Earth it would be easier to get verification hardware moved onto one of the sites, but even then it would not happen immediately. Given time, each site could be checked, but that was a bit disconcerting in the middle of a critical engagement where one would very much like to know if the applied tactics were working. It was decided that the most indicative parameter they could check was the ever-present acceleration that was gradually moving the Earth away from its normal orbit.
"Dr. Gelon, what have you seen?" Bud Hollister asked after the initial attacks had been completed.
"You did it!" Dr. Gelon responded happily. "The acceleration has stopped. "I cannot say if this is permanent, or that it isn't something that they can rapidly repair, but at least for the moment, the orbit is stable again."
"So they aren't immune to our weapons," the Secretary said with great satisfaction. "Alert all of our allies and ground troops, especially the Australians who were eager to attempt a ground attack if the other sites were shown to be vulnerable."
"We have other sightings," Air Force General Markham said. "The Russians have fed us information and our own satellites have picked up alien ships as well."
"Explain," General Easystone commanded, concerned that some form of retaliatory force might be approaching.
"Two other locations are showing an alien ship of the kind spotted leaving the Mongolian site. That makes three of the ships somewhere above the Earth."
"Where are these new locations?" General Easystone asked.
"One is on the Falkland Islands off the southeastern coast of South America," Hollister replied. "The other is off the coast of Canada on a place called Devon Island."
"The Russians are calling for us to attack the Canadian site," the Secretary said. "They are concerned with repercussions if they detonate nuclear weapons on a spot so close to the United States. They claim they are going after the Falkland Island site. Apparently they don't have similar concerns for that area."
"It's not necessary," General Easystone said, trying to control and limit the situation. "We've already accomplished our first goal of stopping their facilities from moving the Earth, and all indications show they might be on the run. With the moon site seemingly destroyed, as well as a couple of their Earth based sites, they may have to regroup. Bombing the two sites if they have been deserted might be throwing away the chance to have a look at their technology, and perhaps finding a way to undo what they have already done to us."
"Nuclear explosion in the Falklands," General Markham reported, interrupting General Easystone. "The Russians have already followed through on their part. It appears they launched some kind of nuclear missile from one of their orbital platforms that just impacted the Falkland Island that the aliens were using. Let's hope they don't decide they need to do our job for us and hit the Canadian island when they see we aren't going after it."
"I'll see if I can get the President to get on the line and call them off," the Secretary of Defense said.
"What do we have on those ships that got away?" General Easystone asked.
"We are still trying to locate them, but the only one we have spotted appears to be headed toward Russia," Bud Hollister replied.
"What about Australia?" Secretary Billings asked.
In the vast Outback desert, word that the sites were not invulnerable, and that the nuclear weapons used on both the moon and Earth based sites had proven effective, the Australian special forces were given the word to advance and attack. The force had been considerably enlarged in preparation for the assault, and now over three hundred of the highly trained soldiers were in the area, and pressing forward toward the alien base. They were supported by two dozen aircraft, armed with both conventional warheads and bombs, and several with the special hypersonic nuclear tipped missiles provided earlier in the week by the United States. CIA officer Clyde Dawson and Australian Colonel Hope were part of the attacking force. The desire was to take the facility more or less intact for the intelligence it might provide, and with some amount of luck capture a number of the aliens as well, although it was anyone's guess whether they could be interrogated later.
As the forces closed in on the facility, frantic movement among the bat-like creatures could be seen through high resolution optics. Not all were aboard the large spaceship as it lifted off from the facility and rapidly rose into the sky. Seeing the ship departing encouraged the attacking forces, correctly believing the most capable defenses of the location were departing as well. As the alien vessel disappeared into the clear blue sky, it was followed by six of the Australian supporting aircraft.
While the human aircraft were outclassed as to speed, the special hypersonic missiles they carried appeared to be up to the task, at least while the alien ship was in the atmosphere. All of the planes chasing after the alien vessel released a pair of missiles, which sped into the sky after the disappearing craft. Most were vaporized by the unknown alien weapon before they could get close, but apparently the number of incoming human weapons were more than the vessel was equipped to deal with and two of the nuclear tipped weapons reached a detonation point in close proximity to the fleeing vessel. Both detonated, the shock wave and bright blast clearly visible on the ground as the detonations high in the atmosphere at more than seventy thousand feet, consumed the alien vessel before it could reach the safety of space.
On the ground, the human forces had found the barrier was not defensive in the sense it could prevent their entry into the compound. It might have alerted the aliens to their entry, but at this point it had to be very apparent to any surviving aliens that the human forces were entering the compound in large, angry numbers from all directions.
Clyde Dawson triggered a three-round burst from his M4 as one of the aliens tried to slip into one of the smaller ships for protection. The shots were on target, and the small creature proved no more resistant to rifle fire than any human, its somewhat purplish blood splattering against the side of the shiny ship as it died.
It was difficult to communicate as the Special Forces soldiers moved in a coordinated attack across the exposed grounds of the alien encampment. Almost constant gunfire was heard, and more than half a dozen of the creatures lay dead as the human forces advanced.
A soldier next to Dawson suddenly burst into a strange flame, and within seconds was no more than a pile of ash as one of the alien's strange projectiles struck home. Dawson dived for cover, another of the deadly glowing orbs passing just inches over his head. Combined fire from several soldiers off to his right ended the attack, and the carefully advancing front moved deeper into the compound.
When it was over, they had three prisoners. One of the aliens, now stripped naked of all gear since they couldn't know what was dangerous and what wasn't, was restrained in a special holding cell in the back of one of the desert vehicles, and the two others, badly wounded and mostly close to death, were put in restraints and assigned to a medical van, with two heavily armed soldiers as escorts. Other than attempting to stop the bleeding, the medics were at a loss as to what might help the creatures, who might react poorly to any of the medicines appropriate for humans. Both were unconscious, and their one unharmed and conscious prisoner either did not understand English or was deliberately playing dumb.
With the area secure, a final
check for any other enemy was undertaken. There was considerable worry about the facilities being booby-trapped in some way, but after a careful entry, the area was declared safe. Apparently the aliens didn't think like us in that regard, or their hurried departure hadn't left them time to implement any such plans they might have considered. The inside of the parked ships showed they were clearly designed to be components of some greater whole, but the function and control was beyond the understanding of anyone who was present at the time.
The status of their attack was forwarded to headquarters, and the area remained under guard with the overhead protection of armed aircraft.
Chapter 29
"We have contacts," the radar operator announced in the operations center at Shackleton Base. "Ten of them, moving very fast on a path that is going to bring them here."
Ever since they'd been alerted to the Russians initiating an attack against the Fermi Crater base where the aliens had their largest facility, the station had been on full alert with all key posts manned. A short time earlier they had detected the loss of one of the orbiting satellites, which had suggested things had not gone completely as planned with the attack. Satellites don't just disappear, even when they fail.
"Alert Earth," the base commander directed. "Tell them we are likely in some serious trouble, not that there is anything they can do about it, or us either," he added, knowing full well that there were no weapons beyond a dozen military rifles at the base.
The situation was passed to Space System back on Earth via both the standard microwave link and the special secure lasercomm link via the antenna farm sitting a short distance away.
"What about Tranquility Base?" the Commander asked.