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

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Sir,” the lead soldier said, “you have to come with us.”

  Alex nodded. “Coming,” he said. There was nothing in the base he couldn't replace, if necessary. They hadn't intended to stay there for more than a month or two, originally. He’d certainly never anticipated that Area 52 might become both home and prison. “What about the others?”

  “We’re seeing to them now, sir,” the soldier assured him. “You have to get out of the base.”

  “Yeah,” Alex said. He shot Abigail a sharp glance. “I know.”

  No one had quite known what to expect when they’d discovered the first crashed alien ship, back before the war had begun openly. Perhaps the craft would regenerate, assimilate the humans foolish enough to study it, and then take off ... or perhaps the aliens carried a disease that humans lacked any resistance to whatsoever. In the end, the tiger team had taken a whole series of increasingly careful precautions, culminating in positioning a tactical nuke under the base. The aliens would not be permitted to recover anything, but radioactive ashes.

  And that meant that they had scant minutes to get out of the blast range before it was too late.

  He wanted to go to Jane, to assist her in moving the alien out of the base, but he doubted the soldiers would let him. Instead, he headed for the stairwell leading down to the lower levels. The emergency tunnels could be accessed from level five ... it struck him, suddenly, that he’d wanted to get out of the base. But now the aliens would be crawling all over the desert, looking for other exits. It wasn’t quite what he’d had in mind.

  “Come on,” he said, heading towards the door. “Let’s go.”

  ***

  Colonel Fields scowled as he looked down at the live feed from the service station. One of the resistance fighters from the north had betrayed them, he decided, before he pushed the thought aside. The aliens were digging their way through the rubble they’d left behind; it wouldn't be long before they uncovered the tunnel and started probing towards Area 52. Parts of the tunnel had already been sealed, but it probably wouldn't matter. Even if the aliens couldn't break through the tunnel, they’d have a good idea of where it went. A quick glance at a map would reveal Area 52’s location to them.

  Let’s hope they do come down the tunnels, he thought, as he monitored the progress of the evacuation. We could give them a very bloody nose if they did.

  “I’m picking up more alien emissions,” the ATC reported. “I think they’re coming in our direction.”

  Fields scowled. So much for that pious hope.

  “Order the MANPAD teams to prepare to engage the enemy as soon as they approach the base,” he ordered, shortly. It was tempting to try to remain hidden, but one way or the other their cover was thoroughly blown. Their only chance to hurt the enemy was now. “And keep funnelling people through the other tunnels.”

  He closed his eyes, visualising their emergency precautions. There were vehicles and identity papers and everything else they should need to escape notice, except that the aliens would want to question anyone they saw in the general area. No doubt they would realise just how deserted this part of the state actually was and deduce that it was no coincidence. His people, the people who knew too much, might well end up being captured by the aliens – and yet he didn't dare kill them outright. The human race needed them too.

  We’ll have to pray, he thought, numbly.

  “And send an emergency message through the network,” he added. “Area 52 has been compromised. We’re preparing for our last stand now.”

  ***

  “Well, you stupid asshole,” Sergeant William Pines muttered to himself, “you wanted action.”

  He’d been furious when he’d discovered that everyone on the base would be expected to remain there for the foreseeable future. It had been a common reaction; the soldiers knew that their country was under enemy occupation and wanted to find a way of fighting back, or even to just get out here and tear into the collaborators. Instead, they’d been told that they had to remain on the base for security. William had no idea what they were guarding, but he had a feeling that it was something big. And yet he’d wanted to go elsewhere to fight.

  He hefted the Stinger missile launcher as the alien craft made their approach to the base, flying low over the desert. They made an impressive sight, William had to admit – and they were chillingly silent. No wonder so many insurgent camps had been surprised when the aliens appeared out of nowhere and dropped warriors right into their midst. He took aim at the lead craft, smiled tightly as the seeker head found a target and pulled the trigger. The Stinger missile lanced out towards its target ...

  ... And vanished in a flash of blue-white light, moments from striking the alien hull.

  Williams swore, dropped the rest of the launcher on the ground and unslung his M16 as the alien craft opened fire, brilliant streaks of plasma fire lashing down and tearing into the base. The handful of seemingly old hangers disintegrated, followed rapidly by the control tower; the aliens shattered the runway as if they expected the base’s staff to make a daring escape in a small aircraft. He opened fire on the craft with his rifle – other soldiers were doing the same – but there was no apparent effect. Instead, the craft just swooped around and launched missiles towards the base.

  Missiles? Part of his mind realised. They never used missiles before.

  A moment later, the world went away in a searing blast of white-hot fire.

  ***

  The entire bunker shook violently.

  Alex caught himself as he stumbled and almost fell. “What the hell was that?”

  “No idea, sir,” one of the soldiers escorting them said. “But we have to keep moving.”

  The light started to flicker, just long enough for Alex to worry that the base was about to lose power altogether. Area 52 had enough power, he’d been assured, to last for years even without resupply from the outside world, but he doubted that it was designed to stand up to an alien assault or whatever the hell was going on outside. Further down the corridor, he heard the sounds of panic. Not every scientist in Area 52 had a military background.

  And not all of the military scientists saw action, Alex thought, grimly. It wasn't as if the USAF put its scientists on the front lines, even though quite a few soldiers had suggested that it might teach the scientists something about the real world. If people start to panic, we’re sunk.

  He scowled as they rounded the corner and reached the airlock. A pair of soldiers were checking off a list of personnel as they made their way out of Area 52 and into the tunnel network that headed eastwards. According to the emergency procedures, there should be transport to Texas, where the resistance was giving the aliens and their collaborators fits. He’d even heard that Texas was considered a hardship posting by the Order Police! It would have been worse if there hadn't been a Mexican Civil War bleeding over the border.

  “Alex,” Jane called. She looked tired and badly worried. “I need a little help here!”

  Alex looked past her – and saw the coffin. The alien had to be inside it, protected from his fellows ... assuming that he wasn't the one who had betrayed them. But if he had been, Alex suspected, surely the aliens would have rounded up Dave Howery and the other spies by now ... unless they’d secretly converted them back to Walking Dead and were playing a long game.

  “Help us carry the coffin,” he grunted to the soldiers.

  Abigail gave the coffin a sharp look. “That’s holding our friend from” – she jerked her head upwards – “isn't it?”

  “Yes,” Jane said, tartly. “And I’d put you in one too, if we had time.”

  Alex scowled as the base shook again. “Come on,” he snapped at the two women. “We don’t have much time.”

  ***

  Fields bit down a curse as the extent of the damage became apparent. The aliens had not only wiped out the defenders on the surface, they’d somehow exposed the uppermost levels of Area 52 without causing colossal damage to the base itself. It would have bee
n difficult to guarantee such a precise strike with human technology, even though Area 52’s defences were flimsy in comparison to the defences surrounding NORAD and other bases that had been destroyed in the last days of the invasion. And most of the base’s sensor network had been taken out too.

  “Order troops to move up to slow the aliens down,” Fields ordered, silently relieved that they’d managed to evacuate the uppermost levels before the aliens deployed their bunker-buster weapons. Those were a surprise; previously, they’d used KEWs to take out buried complexes, although those hadn't left any survivors for interrogation. It was just another reminder that the aliens were more innovative than humanity would have preferred. “Then update me on the evacuation status.”

  The aide checked the display and then turned back to him. “Most of the people on the Category One and Category Two lists have been evacuated into the tunnels,” he said. “Category Three personnel are being evacuated now ...”

  Fields nodded. He doubted that they’d have a chance to get anyone from Category Four or Five – the support staff and the guards – out before the aliens plunged down on them. No doubt they were already dropping their troops into the hole they’d created, seeking to gain a foothold before the humans could push them out of the base. But that wasn't going to happen, he knew; even if he'd had more troops under his command, the aliens could keep funnelling in warriors until they were crushed by sheer weight of numbers.

  “Good,” he said. “Keep me posted.”

  He turned and walked over to a small secure door, placed at the rear of the compartment. It had its own internal power source, thankfully; if the base lost main power, it would still be operational. He pushed his hand against the sensor and waited while it scanned his fingerprints, confirming his identity. It clicked open with an ominous sound, revealing a small computer station and another scanner. Fields stepped inside, placed his hand against the second scanner and heard a bleep when it came online.

  His hand shook as he typed in the code he’d carefully memorised, when he’d been briefed on the extreme security precautions being taken to protect the world. Area 52 hadn’t always been intended to store and study alien technology; it had originally been designed to serve as a biological warfare research laboratory. The nuke was intended to ensure that if something virulent happened to escape the containment rooms, it wouldn't get any further. There was no known disease that could survive the fires of a nuclear blast.

  Before the aliens had arrived, there had been only two nukes used in combat, Fields knew, as he finished typing in the code and waited for the system to verify his identity. Since then, one nuke had been used in Antarctica, taking out an alien base, and several more had been used by the Israelis against alien cities. Now, Fields was about to use another one ...

  He scowled as the ground shuddered. “Sir,” his aide called, “they’re breaking through the defence line.”

  Fields nodded. “Understood,” he said. He hadn't expected much from the defenders, even though he knew that his men would do their best. The aliens were just too powerful. “Break out the sidearms and wait.”

  Carefully, he set the timer – ten minutes – and then entered the final code. There was a bleep as the system accepted his authorisation and armed the nuke. Right now, Fields knew, nothing short of destroying the weapon before it detonated would stop it. And it was positioned somewhere under the base; even he didn't know where it was, precisely. The aliens would have to find it before they could destroy it.

  He closed the door behind him as he stepped back into the control room. A quick code tapped into the system ensured that no one, not even himself, could break into the nuke compartment. It might waste a few minutes if the aliens thought the nuke was in there – and they didn't have time to waste.

  “Gentlemen, it’s been a honour,” he said, as the sound of fighting drew closer. The aliens were clearly picking their way through the base carefully, rather than advancing at once to priority targets. That was a relief, at least. It suggested that whoever had betrayed them hadn't been one of his staff. “And I’m sorry.”

  He smiled, tightly, as he lifted his weapon. The aliens didn't know it, but the base had less than eight minutes before it died – and the alien assault force died with it.

  ***

  Alex glanced backwards as he heard a thud and saw a solid metal barricade behind them, cutting the escapees off from Area 52. The soldiers were barking orders for everyone to run now, ignoring the panic it threatened to cause; Alex, who had a pretty good idea of what was coming, ran too. If the nuke was about to detonate ...

  He’d been briefed on the nuke, but the briefers hadn't gone into much detail. From what they’d said, if the refugees were far enough away they should be safe ... a statement that would have been more useful if they’d told Alex what a safe distance actually was. Instead, they'd just mentioned a handful of details such as the base’s construction ...

  The lights flickered again, casting the tunnel into eerie semi-darkness before they recovered. Alex heard a handful of yells from the other researchers and silently prayed that they would get out before the nuke detonated ... just how long was the tunnel, anyway? Right now, it seemed to be a thousand miles long. He couldn't see any final destination though the people ahead of him.

  WHAM! Alex fell to the concrete floor, his mind barely realising that the nuke must have detonated until after he’d sprawled on the ground. The coffin crashed down beside him; everyone, soldiers and civilians alike, had lost their footing. Abigail landed on top of him and, for a moment, just lay there before she picked herself up and stood upright. There was a weird feeling running through the air which he thought might be radioactive, before realising that he was being silly. As far as he knew, people didn't actually feel radiation ... did they?

  “Keep moving,” one of the soldiers bellowed, as the crowd stumbled back to their feet. “Not much further to go now!”

  Alex looked behind them, half-expecting to see a wall of fire advancing up the tunnel and consuming everything in its path. Instead, he just saw the solid metal plate that had saved their lives. Beyond it, the alien invasion force and any humans left behind in the base would have been destroyed, along with the craft that had started the whole affair. Alex felt a pang of loss; no matter what else happened, he would have liked that craft to take its rightful place in a museum. It was part of human and alien history alike.

  Ten minutes later, they reached the end of the tunnel and climbed upwards to find themselves in another disused airfield. This one was clearly even more abandoned than the surface of Area 52, Alex realised, but there was no time to look around, Instead, he looked westwards, back towards where Area 52 had once been hidden. In the distance, he saw a colossal mushroom cloud fading away into nothingness.

  “My God,” Jane said, clutching his arm. “That's ...”

  Alex shook his head, tiredly. Ever since Hiroshima, the human race had considered nukes to be the ultimate weapons, the final guarantee of their safety. But the aliens had shown humanity just how flawed that concept actually was, at least when the enemy could soak up nuclear explosions and keep coming. Somehow, he doubted that the loss of whatever force had hit Area 52 would detract from the alien ability to wage war.

  “We need to find somewhere safe and check in,” he said, finally. “The war isn't over yet.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  RAF Machrihanish, United Kingdom

  Day 236

  “All right,” the President said, very quietly. “Just what happened at Area 52?”

  Jones looked pale. “The aliens have discovered a way to produce Walking Dead who don’t act like zombies,” he said, grimly. “One of them was included in the guard force escorting the alien doctor to Area 52.”

  The President grimaced, then looked for hope. “Are we sure that this person wasn't a traitor?”

  “I’ve looked at the video recordings from Area 52,” Jones said, “and the Brits have looked at them too. Everyone agrees that th
e traitor, one Judith Dent, was acting very oddly during the alien attack. At one point, she was shooting her former comrades in the back and at another, she was just sitting there, right in the midst of the alien force. And there was no prior ground for suspecting her.

  “I spoke briefly to Colonel Oldham,” he added. “From what he was able to find out, Judith Dent had been having nightmares for several days, ever since the destruction of Mannington. And she certainly spent some time alone before she reported back to the camp. Something could have happened in that time ...”

  Pepper leaned forward. “You mean she could have been captured, implanted and then returned to us,” she said. “But is that even possible?”

  “Unknown,” Jones admitted. “But Mr. President, if the aliens have a way of producing Walking Dead who aren't zombies ...”

  The President had already seen the implications. If the Walking Dead could look like normal humans, the war was within shouting range of being lost. It wouldn't be long before the aliens would infiltrate other resistance cells and then start breaking them open, one by one. And if the new model Walking Dead weren't even aware of their own actions, they might honestly believe that they were still fighting the aliens, even as inhuman minds peered through their eyes. The whole concept was terrifying.

  “We can x-ray the heads of everyone working in a complex like this one,” Jones said, waving a hand around to indicate RAF Machrihanish. “But the resistance on the ground couldn't do that, certainly not very often. Paranoia will do the rest.”

  “Shit,” the President said.

  He could see what was likely to happen. Suspicion and paranoia would start tearing resistance cells apart, as anyone who acted even slightly oddly was likely to be questioned – and suspected – by their peers. And if they truly believed themselves to be innocent, they weren't likely to take the questioning too well. Resistance movements needed some degree of trust between their members or they were doomed. It had been difficult to penetrate Al Qaeda Prime during the War on Terror because the terrorists all knew and trusted one another – and refused to trust anyone outside the group. Later, as constant pressure had worn the group down and forced it to disperse, it had been easier to slip infiltrators into the terrorist groups and destroy them from the inside. But the groups had been so dispersed that taking one of them out didn't always reveal others.