Outside Context Problem: Book 03 - The Slightest Hope of Victory

by Christopher Nuttall

  Jane leaned forward. “In human terms, all of the Rogue Leaders are incredibly charismatic,” she said. “The aliens are genetically predisposed to obey orders from them. However, apart from the workers, the lower castes do not accept orders unquestionably, unless they are issued in person. The longer a lower caste alien stays out of direct contact with a leader, the more likely they are to start thinking for themselves.”

  “Seems odd,” the President observed. “Haven't we seen their warriors anticipating and innovating as well as reacting to events?”

  “Yes, but that was all part of their plan,” Jane explained. “Their faith in the overall operation remained unshaken. But if the Rogue Leaders start to lose control, the results could be disastrous for them personally. They will have to go down to the surface and direct operations personally.”

  “We may have to help the alien rebels deal with the mothership,” Alex added. “Thankfully, the aliens have offloaded most of their population and supplies down to the surface now, but the mothership is still the core of their operations. Losing the command ship over Washington hurt.”

  “Then we might need to take out the others,” the President said. “Can we do that?”

  “Perhaps,” Jones said. “We’ve put together a handful of plasma warheads in Britain, but they won’t be taken by surprise again. Getting the warheads to the craft might prove tricky.”

  The President clapped his hands together for attention. “So your overall plan is to keep raising the temperature until they boil,” he said. “And force them to deal with so many threats that they take their eyes off the ball. And what if it fails?”

  “We lose,” Alex said.

  He shook his head at their expressions. “This isn't a war where one side can surrender to the other, then seek revenge later,” he added. “If the Rogue Leaders win, humanity will become part of an ant colony. At worst, we will have helped to unleash a Borg-like nightmare on the universe.”

  “There’s always the Sampson Option,” Fields said. “Or the Wildfire Option.”

  The President leaned forward. “Is Wildfire a viable tactic?”

  Alex looked at Jane, who flushed angrily.

  “Perhaps,” she said, crossly. “Producing a virus capable of attacking the aliens – and not humanity – is theoretically possible. However, it would be extremely difficult to get it up into their spacecraft without being detected. We have not quizzed our source on their biohazard precautions, but we dare not assume that they’re not extensive.”

  “And if we did try to use biological weapons,” Jones said quietly, “they will unite against us.”

  The President and Prime Minister shared a glance. “Perhaps it would be best to keep Wildfire and Sampson in reserve,” the President said, finally. “If we lose the war, at least we can take them down with us.”

  “They may go after Britain before we’re ready to start upping the tempo,” Alex said. “I believe that there’s a carrier in British waters.”

  “The aircraft are ready to fight,” the Prime Minister said. “But we do need more pilots for the other aircraft we’ve scraped up.”

  Alex smiled. The British had been forced to intern an American aircraft carrier as the aliens chipped away at America’s air force, saving the carrier from joining the others under the waves. No one had anticipated defending a carrier from alien plasma bolts and several nuclear-powered carriers, the former queens of the sea, had been sitting ducks. But the aircraft had been flown to British bases, along with their weapons and fuel. They could return to the fight.

  “But you can also give them a bloody nose, if the new weapons are deployed in time,” Alex pointed out, mildly. “It might help to add to the temperature if they start taking more damage than they expected from Britain. And if they mass their forces against the UK, we can launch ballistic missiles at the mothership. We might do them some quite considerable damage.”

  “There are a handful of modified nukes,” Jones added. “But they have never been tested in combat.”

  “There’s a lot of that going around,” Alex reminded him.

  “Work out the operational details,” the President ordered. “Drag up what additional pilots you can, then have them sent to the UK. We’ll see if we can shake anything loose from France or Germany as well, although that may be tricky. One way or another, this is going to be our last shot. We’ll throw everything we can at the bastards.”

  “We’ll see to it,” Alex promised. There were quite a few surprises that had been held in reserve, including infiltrators and poison gas. No one knew how the gas would affect the alien warriors, but it might give humanity a brief advantage. “They’ll know that they’ve been kissed.”

  “Good luck, everyone,” the President said. “And God be with you.”

  His image vanished from the display, followed rapidly by the remaining participants.

  “Alex,” Jane hissed, as soon as they were alone, “who told them about Wildfire?”

  “One of the docs, I assume,” Alex said, carefully. “It is a viable weapon ...”

  “No, it isn't,” Jane snapped. She sounded furious. “It might have been a workable concept when we thought we were dealing with a united alien force, but now we know about the rebels ... there’s no way to discriminate between them and the bad guys. It could destroy them all – or make them determined to wipe us out completely. We cannot risk using Wildfire!”

  “Let’s hope that it doesn't come to that,” Alex said. “Because, right now, we are on the brink of either victory or total defeat.”

  Years ago, he’d read a book where the author had asked just how far humanity was prepared to go to win against a savage alien horde. But he’d cheated, really; the alien threat was so dangerous that any measures were fully justified. The author had offered his characters the choice between doing horrific acts or being eaten. It was no contest. Now, they were in much the same boat.

  “I understand that,” Jane snapped, when he explained. “But we know that not all of the aliens are monsters!”

  “In the end, that may not matter,” Alex admitted. He’d once dreamed of alien contact. Now the dream had become a nightmare. “All that matters is humanity’s survival. If the Rogue Leaders cannot be beaten, we might have to use Wildfire – or Sampson.”

  “Madness,” Jane insisted. She caught him by the arm and swung him around, staring into his eyes. “You’d destroy both races.”

  “I know,” Alex said. “But if the situation becomes that bad ... is there any choice?”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Virginia/Washington DC, USA

  Day 222-225

  “I understand that you’re going on a long trip?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Carlson said. “But I’m also afraid I can't talk about it.”

  Nicolas had to smile. The world of Special Forces was highly compartmentalised, leading to jokes about imaginary countries called ‘I can't talk about it,’ or ‘highly-classified.’ These days, secrecy was a must; resistance cells that weren't careful about their secrets wound up dead.

  “I’m going somewhere too,” he admitted. “But I also can't talk about it.”

  He stuck out a hand. “Thank you for everything,” he said. “I just hope that you manage to get up to orbit again soon.”

  “Me too,” Carlson said. They’d spent last night talking about their future, in a world where the aliens were humanity’s allies. Nicolas wanted to find and raise his daughter, but Carlson had other plans. He wanted to build humanity’s first interstellar starship. “But that may be tricky for a while.”

  “Hey, Nicky,” Bane called. “It's time to go.”

  Nicolas shook Carlson’s hand firmly, then nodded over at Abigail. “I’ll miss you too,” he assured her. “And we’ll see each other again soon enough.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Abigail said. She surprised Nicolas by giving him a tight hug. “And watch yourself. You won’t do your daughter any good if you get killed.”

  Nicolas sc
owled, feeling his emotions darkening. There was nothing about Nancy in any of the reports, not as far as he had been able to tell. But then, would Oldham and his officers have told him if there was? It might have compromised their source if Nicolas knew something he was later forced to spill to the aliens. Practically speaking, he knew too much already. He was mildly surprised that he hadn't been ordered to proceed into lockdown along with Abigail.

  But then, if the aliens worked out why the resistance was going to Washington in the first place, they’d be able to put the rest together very quickly. No one had ever accused the Rogue Leaders of being stupid ...

  “I know,” he said. “And you watch yourself too.”

  “Come on,” Bane snapped. “I want to be well away from here by the time the sun rises, ladies!”

  Nicolas sighed, winked at Abigail, and turned to follow the rest of the team out of the bunker. As always, they were blindfolded as they left, an exercise in trust that had always bothered him, even when they’d performed it during SEAL training. Nicolas suspected that it was a waste of time – he already had a good idea of the bunker’s location – but given the network of tunnels under the ground it might give the resistance a chance to destroy evidence and scatter before the aliens caught them. Or it might not.

  The blindfold was removed fifteen minutes later, revealing that they were standing in the midst of a patch of woodland. Nicolas glanced around, exchanged brief salutes with the blindfolding party – none of them were allowed to go more than a few kilometres from the bunker – and then allowed Bane to lead them eastwards, towards Washington. They had a long walk ahead of them.

  “We don’t want to run into any trouble,” Bane had explained, during the pre-mission briefing. “If we do, we break contact as quickly as possible and pray that they don’t come after us.”

  The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, Nicolas thought, remembering his first set of instructors. They’d pointed out that a long march seemed impossible, even to SEALs, but if they concentrated on each step rather than on the entirety of the march it came easier. Not that anyone expected to reach Washington before dawn broke over the countryside; Nicolas knew that the plan was to hole up in the countryside and escape alien surveillance as much as possible. Or, for that matter, the bandits who infested some parts of the countryside.

  He couldn't help glancing upwards, admiring the stars – and alien spacecraft – high overhead. How large were they, he asked himself, that they reflected light down to the planet that could be seen with the naked eye? And was it his imagination, or were there fewer lights in the sky now? The aliens were completing the task of disembarking the colonists on Earth, displacing vast numbers of humans from their homes and forcing them into camps. It was bad to the west, Nicolas had been told, and worse in the Middle East. The social contract had been completely destroyed there.

  But that shouldn't have been a surprise, he told himself, remembering working with Arabs during the war. They were never sold on the concept in the first place.

  Dawn was breaking over the horizon when Bane finally called a halt, steering them towards an abandoned barnyard. Nicolas checked it out automatically, finding no trace of the farmer who had owned the building – or anyone else, for that matter. Still, they didn't dare risk using the building; the Order Police had a habit of checking out seemingly abandoned buildings, perhaps considering their use as garrisons. Instead, they found a vantage point nearby, constructed a rudimentary shelter and settled down to rest. After everywhere he’d slept in his long career, Nicolas found it easy to just close his eyes and go to sleep.

  “Could be worse,” Bane muttered, as he woke Nicolas five hours later to take his turn watching for trouble. “Seen nothing, but a handful of helicopters.”

  Nicolas nodded, thinking hard. The Order Police hadn't been given any aircraft – and the idea of the resistance flying helicopters in alien-controlled skies was ludicrous. Normally, it was the aliens who provided air support for the Order Police – to the point of dropping KEWs from orbit on high concentrations of rebel fighters. But if they were flying helicopters ... did it mean that the aliens were feeling the pinch? It would be years, according to the alien rebels, before they could start producing new fighter craft to replace their losses.

  He settled back and watched patiently as the day wore on. There were a handful of people – orphaned children, he suspected – who stopped at the farmhouse and searched it, only to discover that they weren't the first to find and loot the building for food. Nicolas wondered, absently, what those children would do when winter came; it was unlikely in the extreme that they would be able to survive the cold. Maybe they’d find locals willing to take them in, but that would mean that they’d have to explain their presence. Chances were the orphaned children weren't registered.

  “Food,” Bane said, as Nicolas woke him. “Is it that time already?”

  Nicolas snorted. “Darkness is falling over the land, literally as well as metaphorically,” he said. “Grab some food and then we can move on.”

  “Fancy talk,” Bane said, dryly. “Did they teach you that in BUD/S?”

  “Along with fifty different ways to kill a man with my pinkie,” Nicolas countered, as he dug into the rucksacks. The cooks at the bunker had provided them with sandwiches rather than MREs, although he couldn't decide if it was intended as a hearty dinner for the condemned men or a reflection on the shortage of MREs. “I saw a handful of children nearby, but they didn't come close to us.”

  “Lots of them around,” Bane said, grimly. He poked the person lying next to him. “Wake up; dinner time!”

  Once they had eaten, they walked onwards, skirting the remains of several towns that had attempted to stand up to the aliens in the early days of the occupation. He had wondered if they intended to cross the mountains and pass through Quantico, which had belonged to the Marine Corps before the invasion, but Bane pointed out that it was currently strongly held by the aliens. No one was quite sure what they were doing with the bases, yet anyone who went too close to them risked arrest and detention – or simple execution. The aliens guarded them closely.

  Probably want to ensure that we can't loot the bases for supplies, Nicolas thought, with some amusement. Pity we stripped out most of the armouries while they were still beating the crap out of the air force.

  They paused again when dawn broke, then pressed on again towards the outskirts of Washington. It was strange, Nicolas realised; the wreckage of the alien command ship was blighting the skyline, so massive that it was visible for miles around. He’d directed the drone that had been used to take the giant craft down, yet he’d never grasped intellectually just how enormous it was. It was, he decided, like the officers who failed to realise that maps weren't perfect copies of the terrain until they’d actually carried out exercises on the terrain. They couldn't comprehend the truth until they saw it with their own eyes.

  “We’ll hole up here and get closer at night,” Bane said. “The locals will have to help us into the city.”

  Nicolas nodded, peering through his binoculars towards the alien craft. It was stunning – and it was surrounded by dozens of other craft, all picking away at the wreckage. According to reports from Washington, the aliens had secured the parameter around the crashed ship and barred anyone from going near enough to salvage anything from the disaster site. Nicolas wasn't surprised. The loss of the command ship had done more than just put a dent in their pride.

  “The resistance here takes a few pot-shots at the wreckage from time to time,” Bane said, when he asked. “But the aliens are damn quick to react. There must be something very sensitive in that hulk.”

  Nicolas nodded.

  It was nightfall by the time they made contact with a handful of people from Washington. There was a brief exchange of signs and countersigns, then Bane nodded, passing Nicolas over to the newcomers. The remainder of his escort would make their way back to Virginia, perhaps taking the opportunity to gather more intelligence
along the way. Nicolas waved goodbye and then concentrated on the next part of the mission. Sneaking up through the alien lines would be very dangerous.

  “You can call me Joe,” the resistance leader informed him. “No other names, not here.”

  Nicolas nodded in understanding.

  “We’re going to use part of the tunnel network,” Joe added. “It isn't quite what it used to be, so be wary. Do what you’re told and try not to fall into the shit.”

  “The tunnels?” Nicolas asked. “What about ...”

  “Parts of them have collapsed after the big tamale went down,” Joe said, as they headed into a small house. “Other parts were closed off by the aliens, but they don’t seem to pay much attention to the tunnels outside the Green Zone. We have to be more careful when sneaking in there.”

  Nicolas could understand it. Underground Washington, he'd been told, was riddled with tunnels, ranging from sewers to secret passageways linking the governments buildings together. They were used to allow meetings to be held without the press getting wind of them; back them, anyone entering the White House could expect to be filmed and identified before they’d even met the President. God alone knew how many tourists had been mistakenly identified as diplomats or military officials by overeager reporters. Now, of course, he’d expected the aliens to have destroyed or booby-trapped the tunnels.

  Inside the house, Joe led him down into the basement and opened a hatch in the concrete floor, revealing a ladder falling away into darkness. Nicolas wasn't claustrophobic, but he couldn't help shivering as he peered down into the shadows, wondering what was hiding there. All of a sudden, all the stories about alligators growing up in the sewers – to say nothing of turtles and oversized rats – seemed very plausible.

  “Here,” Joe said, passing him a pair of goggles and a helmet. “We don’t know if these can fool the bastards, but we can at least try.”

  Nicolas smiled. The light mounted on the helmet was designed for Special Forces; it literally wasn't visible unless someone was wearing a pair of matching goggles. A user might find himself in what seemed like broad daylight, while everyone else would be trapped in the dark. But no one really knew if the alien warriors could see the light or not. It was quite possible that they could see it, without equipment. They could already see in the dark better than humans.