On the other hand, he told himself, the goggles might actually come in handy this time. They weren't jumping into the badlands of Afghanistan or somewhere else they knew well, but boarding an alien mothership. None of them – not even Nicolas Little – had set foot inside the mothership; given its colossal size, they could spend years roaming through it without ever encountering their target. The goggles would steer them directly to the Rogue Leader.
He shook his head as he pulled the goggles away from his eyes and started to inspect the rest of the gear they’d liberated from the alien supply dump. Apart from a handful of rumours too far out to be generally believed, there had never been a serious military operation in orbit – and nothing in the way of specialised equipment for orbital fighting. There had been some prototype powered exoskeletons, the forerunners of science-fiction’s armoured combat suits, but no one knew what had happened to them. Besides, if the rumours he’d heard were to be believed, they had never worked out as well as their designers had hoped.
Sergeant McCoy joined him in rooting through the shelves of equipment. “Weapons, armour, medical gear ... what do you think they wanted this for?”
Edward shrugged. “Maybe they’re packrats,” he said, softly. “Or maybe they just thought their collaborators could use it later.”
***
Nicolas couldn't help smiling as the alien craft descended to the ground and settled down beside the White House. No one would have called any of the resistance fighters cowards, but it was clear that some of them were nervous at willingly setting foot on an alien craft, no matter who was flying it. Not that Nicolas could blame them, he had to admit; there had been joint operations in Central Asia where he’d felt more vulnerable to his so-called friends than to the terrorists and insurgents who were his targets.
There was a faint hiss as the hatch opened, revealing a human figure. “Come on in,” Philip Carlson said. “The water’s fine.”
“Coming,” Nicolas said, as cheerfully as he could.
He led the way up into the hatch, finding himself in a large compartment that was almost completely bare. A handful of men wearing British uniforms looked up and nodded politely as the Americans entered. Nicolas grinned, more openly, as he realised that he recognised a couple of them. It hadn't been that long since British and American forces had worked together in Afghanistan.
“Mike Yates,” he said, in delight. “How have you been?”
Yates grinned back at him. “They told us that we were being put in reserve,” he said, dryly. “And to think we were dead pissed at the time.”
Nicolas nodded, understanding the SAS trooper’s resentment. He’d been told to prepare to go underground too, when the alien mothership had reached Earth and started to offload its vast army of warriors and colonists. It still gnawed at him that he hadn't taken part in the final defence of Washington, or Fort Hood, or any of the other last stands the American military had made as the aliens closed in for the kill. He knew he would have died there, or wound up an alien prisoner, but cold logic couldn't dispel the sense that he had failed his country. Yates would have felt the same.
“Got something else here,” Yates continued, tapping the bag between his legs. “You might recognise it.”
Nicolas felt his blood run cold as he saw what was inside the bag. “Had all the kids you want, then?”
Yates shrugged. “Christopher and David and Matt are such fine boys,” he said. He tapped the bag meaningfully. “My wife keeps saying that I should have the operation, but how will I ever survive without my balls?”
Nicolas shook his head in disbelief. “What will happen if you detonate that on the mothership?”
“The head sheds weren't sure,” Yates admitted, using the SAS slang for senior officers. “Their general feeling was that allowing one of the bad aliens to remain in control of the mothership was a very bad idea. So ... maybe we can blow it to dust before it can enter Earth’s atmosphere.”
“As a final recourse,” Philip Carlson said, softly. “It would still be very bad for the Earth.”
“Tell me about it,” Tanaka said. He sounded uneasy. “When are we taking off?”
Carlson made a strangled sound. “We’re in the air,” he said. “And we’re on our way.”
Nicolas smiled at their reactions. He’d felt the very brief shift as the craft’s drive fields propelled it upwards, but no one else had noticed it. They were used to helicopters and other human aircraft, not the alien spacecraft. Moments later, the entire compartment started to turn transparent.
“Estimated time of arrival; seven minutes,” a cold voice said. There was an immediate grab for weapons as one of the alien leaders stepped into the compartment. “From that moment on, you must kill or be killed.”
Nicolas relaxed, slightly. The alien in the White House had tried to control him – and he had had a far stronger impact than the alien rebel. Or was the rebel not trying to control him?
“Hey,” Tanaka said. “If we’re going up into space, does that make us the space marines?”
Dudley snickered and started to sing. “From the burning ruins of Washington to the cold dark reaches of space ...”
“Mercy, mercy,” Yates called. “I’ll talk, I’ll talk!”
McIntyre snorted. “I guess we have a new tool to convince prisoners to talk,” he said. “Didn’t we play them pop songs to weaken their nerves?”
“It doesn't scan,” Tanaka pointed out, ignoring McIntyre’s comment. “But we can write the next stanza of our hymn later.”
Silence fell over the compartment as the mothership came into view. Nicolas had seen the command ships up close, but the mothership was far larger, so large that it was hard to comprehend its true size. It was suddenly easy to believe that a billion aliens had travelled from one star to another on the ship, even if parts of it looked to have been dissembled. But they would need to get building materials from somewhere ...
They were building bases on the moon too, he thought. Even if we win the war and take out the Rogue Leader, nothing will ever be the same again.
“The Rogue is attempting to override the isolated parts of the computer network,” the alien rebel informed them. “We have locked him out, but he has numerous workers under his command with direct access to the computer cores. Once accessed, he will be able to power up the drive or activate the ship’s weapons. Either one would be disastrous to your planet.”
Yates looked up. “Can’t you talk him down? Offer him something in exchange for surrender?”
“He knows that we could not leave him alive,” the alien said, simply. “They are just too dangerous to be allowed to live.”
Nicolas could imagine it. If one Rogue Leader could dominate so many aliens ... just taking him prisoner might be disastrous in itself.
“We could take him and hold him,” he said, although he suspected that would be asking for trouble too. If the Rogue could control humans too ... but they couldn't, not perfectly. Or was it a talent that would improve with practice? “Keep him prisoner somewhere on Earth ...”
“Too dangerous for both of our races,” the alien said. A faint hum ran through the craft as it altered course, heading in towards the docking port. “Prepare to disembark.”
Nicolas took one last look at the blue orb of Earth, half-eclipsed by the mothership, and then picked up his rifle, slipping the goggles over his eyes. A plan of the mothership appeared in front of him, dimmed down to prevent it from blinding him at the worst possible time.
“Here we go,” he said, out loud. “Mike, keep that weapon of yours at the rear. We don’t want to use it unless there is no other choice.”
“There might be a reception committee,” Tanaka pointed out. “Do they know we’re coming?”
“They shouldn't,” the alien said. “But they may already have taken direct control of the sensors.”
Nicolas shivered. This could go horrifically wrong.
Chapter Fifty
The Alien Mothership, Earth Orbit
>
Day 254
“Creepy,” Dudley muttered.
Edward nodded in agreement as the two marines inched their way down the corridor towards the heart of the massive starship. It was a disconcertingly alien environment, far more so than the alien base. The proportions were subtly wrong, the air was hot and dry and the gravity field kept fluctuating. Edward suspected that the mothership was large enough to generate its own gravity field, even without whatever gravity manipulation technology the aliens had, but it didn't seem to be stable. Or the aliens were trying to use gravity to trap and kill the human intruders.
“Like a freaking Borg ship,” McCoy said, softly. “Do you think the workers will ignore us if they see us?”
“Better not assume that,” Edward said. “That would be just dumb.”
The noise pervading the ship’s hull was growing louder, hurting his ears. It was a dull droning rumble, almost too low for him to hear it, yet it seemed to fluctuate in line with the gravity field. At times, it was joined by a screech that sounded like two pieces of metal being forced together. He rubbed his ears, then gritted his teeth and pressed onwards. They couldn't go back now.
Sweat trickled down his back as they reached the end of the corridor and stared into a massive compartment. It was larger than any barracks he’d ever seen, crammed with small boxes that reassembled coffins. A glance through the transparent lids revealed alien faces, all of a caste he didn't recognise. There was something oddly feminine about them, even though the briefing papers had pointed out that the aliens, for all the differences between the castes, didn't seem to have any size or strength differences between the sexes. He reminded himself that he could be completely wrong, then inched away from the coffin towards the other end of the compartment.
“We need a stake and some garlic,” Dudley suggested. “What is happening to them?”
“Suspended animation,” Carlson said. He had stayed behind with the alien pilot, who would – they’d been told – attempt to assume command of the mothership once the Rogue Leader was dead. “Most of the aliens were sleeping during their time in interstellar space.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” Edward muttered. He lifted his voice as they reached the end of the compartment. “Do we proceed?”
The alien craft was staggeringly vast. Edward knew just how easily a city like Baghdad or even Kabul could swallow up a military patrol, but the alien craft was far larger than many countries. It struck him, as he peered down the next corridor, that the entire pre-war military – soldiers, sailors and airmen – could rattle around inside the mothership for years, looking for their target. Occupying the entire ship might prove as challenging as occupying a full-sized city.
“No choice,” Little said. “Proceed.”
Edward nodded and advanced into the next compartment. This one was crammed with equipment, some easy to understand, some completely alien. Several vehicles – the alien counterpart to Humvees, he decided - were piled next to a set of equipment that looked rather melted. If he hadn’t had experience with alien designs, he would have thought that the equipment was damaged and had been shipped back to the mothership for repair. Even so, it was impossible to deduce its purpose.
He froze as he saw movement at the other end of the corridor. “Contact,” he hissed. “Wait ...”
Four alien workers appeared, carrying a blocky object the size of an Abrams tank between them. Edward reminded himself, yet again, not to take the tiny aliens lightly, even if they were no larger than the child he’d rescued from the POW camp. Picking up a tank was well beyond the abilities of four humans, no matter how developed. The aliens were terrifyingly strong.
The aliens stopped and stared at the humans. There was a long moment of absolute silence, then they jumped aside and allowed the object they were carrying to land on the deck. The clang almost deafened Edward, almost distracting him as the alien workers rushed forward, their cyborg arms glittering with deadly light. Edward levelled his rifle and shot the first one down; the other four were gunned down by the other soldiers. None of them had stood a chance.
“I think they know we’re here,” he said, grimly. Maybe the Rogue didn’t have full control over the command network – the alien rebel had explained that it responded to the leaders, and right now most of the surviving leaders were rebels – but he’d surely notice four deaths. “Time to move faster, sir.”
“Understood,” Little said. “Take point and advance. Don’t hesitate to engage anyone you meet who isn't human.”
***
Nicolas was having a hard time coming to grips with the interior of the alien mothership. He had spent time on aircraft carriers and other giant ships, but there was a logic to their design that was understandable, something that made them easy to navigate. Even the cramped houses and markets of Fallujah had been comprehensible, once they had been thoroughly scoped out by the American forces. But the alien craft seemed to have been designed by a madman.
Corridors that turned back on themselves, passageways too small for any adult human, fluctuating gravity fields ... Nicolas was honestly uncertain if the aliens had intended to create a maze or if they had merely been indulging a design aesthetic that was thoroughly alien. There didn't seem to be any logic to it at all. Entire sections seemed to be isolated from the rest of the ship, or on lower levels. There were even compartments that one seemed to need to go miles out of one’s way to access.
And then there was the disconcertingly alien design of just about everything they encountered. It wore on his men, reminding them that they were in an alien environment, one that had not designed for humans. They had grown used to the Middle East – and even to the surreal experience of fighting in America itself – but this was different. He couldn't help thinking that they would never grow used to living in such an environment.
“Damn it,” he heard Tanaka swear, through the radio link. “They’ve blocked our path, sir.”
“Dug in damn well too,” Dudley agreed.
“Hold them there,” Nicolas ordered, studying the diagrams of the alien craft. The aliens had blocked the quickest path to the computer core, but there were ways around it. Unless, of course, the aliens had blocked them too. “Team Two will try to flank the enemy.”
The fighting rapidly became intensive as the alien workers emerged from tiny passageways to throw themselves on the advancing humans. Nicolas lost two men after an alien worker dropped from overhead and ripped them apart before any of their comrades could react, then a third to another worker who had somehow turned his cyborg arm into a deadly weapon. He rapidly abandoned any thought of securing lines of communication into the ship’s interior. There was no way that his tiny force could hope to hold them all secure, not when the workers could slip through passageways no human could use. How many of the little bastards were there?
“We need to bring up reinforcements,” he snapped, as they pushed through another makeshift barricade. Thankfully, the workers didn't seem to have the same intrinsic understanding of military tactics as the warriors. Even so, they were burning off ammunition at an alarming rate. Fire discipline didn't hold when the targets moved so quickly that spray and pray was the only viable tactic. “And we need more troops.”
He gritted his teeth. Down on Earth, other forces would be being assembled, but it might be some time before they were ready to join them. If they kept using ammunition at this rate, they were likely to be overrun before reinforcements arrived. The alien workers seemed even less mindful of their own safety than the Taliban’s most fanatical warriors.
“Got another nest dead ahead,” Yates said. “I think they’re blocking us completely.”
Nicolas checked the map. He was right. The only way around the aliens would be go back for miles, then pick a different route towards the computer core. They had the advantage of the interior defence as well as overall numbers, being able to shift their forces to meet the humans no matter where they came from. Normally, it would be possible to grind the defenders down
, but they just didn't have time.
“Use grenades,” he ordered. “Clear the way.”
He’d worried, at first, about using automatic weapons and grenades on a starship, concerned about accidentally punching through the hull. The alien rebels had dismissed the concerns, pointing out that they would be deep inside the ship’s hull. Besides, they’d learned from experience that whatever metal the aliens used to line their corridors was tough. One of his men had been injured by a ricochet that had almost killed him.
“Grenades away,” Yates said. Up ahead, explosions shook the corridor as they blasted the alien warriors apart. In confined spaces, the results were devastating. “It’s clear.”
Nicolas nodded, but kept his rifle at the ready as they advanced forward. The aliens were too crafty to depend on just one group of warriors to block their advance ... he scowled as streaks of blue-white light appeared ahead of them, blazing down the corridor. He hadn't wanted to be proved right quite so quickly.
“Got a message from Earth,” Carlson said. His voice sounded faintly tinny through Nicolas’s earpiece. “They’re loading up the 16 Air Assault Brigade in the UK – they should be with us in thirty minutes. Apparently, the Paras will also be on their way, but no clear time yet.”
Nicolas scowled. Given just how much notice the resistance – and the British military - had had of the need to deploy forces to orbit, they were doing far better than anyone had a right to expect. And yet it was far too likely that the reinforcements would arrive too late to save his ass. They might not even have the equipment they needed to fight and win. Ammunition supplies were critically low everywhere.
Outside Context Problem: Book 03 - The Slightest Hope of Victory Page 47