Starsong Chronicles: Exodus

by Clayborn, JJ

  James nodded to his men and activated the EMP rifle. “Let’s do it.” He hunkered down and lined up a robot in his sights and squeezed the trigger. …nothing happened. Nothing visible, anyway. James was expecting a bang or a flash, or something, but the rifle was totally silent. The robot that he targeted stiffened up and electricity arced all over its body, before it fell face down into the dirt.

  “Yes!” James shouted, lining up another shot.

  The men cheered and the rest of the EMP rifles opened fire. A dozen robots stiffened up, danced with electricity, and then keeled over.

  The robots stopped in their tracks for a moment. They looked at the hills. Without warning they burst out in both directions, leaping up the cliff face.

  Fear and panic gripped the men, including James. The soldiers fired back as quickly as they could, sending many of them tumbling back down the mountainside. But there were too many. A few robots reached the top and started slaughtering the soldiers.

  James and his men fought back, but their fear made them sloppy. Eventually James was able to focus and lead his men in a countercharge.

  One of the robots looked at the soldiers around james and yelled “Traitor!” just before James ended him with an EMP blast.

  The robots had done serious damage. They broke four of the EMP rifles on James’ side and killed about half of his men. James looked across and managed to help them clean up the rest of the aliens. The other group lost ten rifles and about a hundred soldiers.

  As James looked out over the plains below the mountain he noticed that no more aliens were trying to breach the gap. He jumped on the raido. “Fouche Gap secure, attack repelled!” It was only then that he noticed it was off. He clicked it on to resend his message, but the news grim.

  Immediately the radio burst to life. “1404, we’re being overrun from the north! About 20 made it up somehow. We’re falling back to….” Static truncated his transmission.

  James exchanged worried glances with his men and began sprinting back to their post. 1404 was close. It was a little over two miles along the ridgeline to the north. If the robots continued, they’d reach one of the generators.

  “1501 moving to reinforce 1483,” James shouted, as his men ran past the sentry he left behind. “1483 is just over a mile, let’s hustle.”

  More grim tidings flooded in. “1127, more enemy contacts sighted north. About…” more static.

  Another panicked report came through. “1206! Enemy has breached the ridge, pressing from the north. Heavy casualties. Falling back to 1535!”

  James and his squad arrived at peak 1483 just as a few robot soldiers appeared in the trees. A few well-placed rifle shots and they were down. James and his crew fanned out and secured the flank while the rest of the team focused on the robots below.

  The radio squawked again. “Peak 1535, abandoning position. There’s no way to defend this, too many robots. Falling back to 1701.”

  “1535,” came Colonel Ryan’s immediate reply. “What about the generator?”

  “It’s too heavy to move. We have to leave it behind.”

  The robots on the western flank halted their advance. About 250 of them remained James estimated, and they stayed just out of range of the EMP rifles.

  “Peak 1259, moving to reinforce 1219,” a voice called from the radio. That’s smart, one of the generators is at 1219.

  “1100, under attack!” A tense voice shouted. “Pressed from both the west and south. Can’t defend against both, please advise.”

  “Can you move the generator?” Kosnick asked.

  “Negative, command. Terrain is too rough.”

  “Pull back to 1501 and reinforce there,” Ryan commanded. “All units give me a status report.”

  “1219 here, with the reinforcements from 1259 we have 350 men and 42 rifles.”

  “1483 here, thanks to the Ranger we are still at full strength – 150 men and 18 rifles.”

  James radioed in as he group returned to camp. “1501 here, 260 men, 38 rifles.”

  “1521 reporting, 50 men and 8 rifles remain.”

  “Glover’s Lake, 150 and 18.”

  Ryan’s voice came over the radio. “1127 was overrun. 1404 was overrun. 1206 was falling back. Has anyone seen them?”

  “Where we they falling back to?” someone asked.

  “1535,” Thompson said. After a moment’s pause. “Scratch that, 1206 is lost.” Another pause. “Please advise on enemy troops.”

  “Approximately 250 remain west,” Hicks called in.

  “About 400 in the south,” someone else confirmed.

  “What about north?” Thompson asked. “Didn’t someone say more were in the north? Does anyone have eyes on that?”

  A helicopter pilot radioed in. “I have eyes on them. About 200, moving southwest along the valley, they look like they are moving to Rock Mountain, opposite of command.”

  James was shaking his head. Panic swept over him and the enormity of the situation weighed down on him. “We’re not going to win this.”

  “What do you mean?” Sergeant Kolar, the commander of Peak 1100 asked.

  “Did you listen to the numbers?” James recapped. They had about a thousand, plus their reinforcements. Now they have 850. We started with 240 EMP rifles deployed, we have 172 left. Of the 1,940 we started with, we’ve already lost 580.” He shook his head. “If you look at what it cost us in people and equipment to kill 350 of them, then we don’t have enough left to take them all out.” James felt sad. Inexplicably sad, not just for him either, but for everyone else fighting in these hills, and everyone else that the robots would kill after they’ve failed.

  “So what are we going to do?” Sergeant Kolar asked.

  James shrugged. “No idea, but I can tell you what they are going to do.” He pointed at the map. “Their other force is going to take position here, on the mountain, and then they’ll press another attack.”

  Kolar frowned. “How do you know this?”

  “Because it’s what I would do. Look,” he pointed. “Our generators are here, and here. They’re not in the right position and the other two are destroyed. We can only point them in one direction. If they press their attacks from all sides simultaneously they’ll overwhelm our defenses.”

  “Oh,” Kolar said as realization set in. “But what are we going to do?”

  James shrugged. “Make them pay. Fight to the last man.” He looked Sergeant Kolar in the eyes. “I know one thing for sure. They aren’t going to let us just give up and escape. And now they have us surrounded. Either we give up and they kill us and skin us and pretend to be us, or we make a stand and die fighting. But death seems certain either way.” James frowned, resigned to his fate.

  The radio crackled to life. “Here they come again!”

  The soldiers at James’ peak set up positions looking north toward Rock Mountain, West toward the valley, and south toward the plains. More than two hundred people were poised in close proximity, but the silence was deafening. No one breathed. For several long minutes everything was quiet.

  The radio burst to life. “1483, contact! Contact! Coming from west side…” gunfire and explosions echoed in the background before the line went dead.

  Another burst of static and new transmission followed. “1219, Contact!”

  “Shit!” James cursed under his breath. “They’re going after the last two generators first.” This was one of those times where James didn’t want to be right.

  “1521, Contact!” A panicked voice shouted over the radio.

  “And now they’re trying to cut us off,” James said. He stared at the map, trying to fight off the fear as he visualized their attack.

  “Glover’s Lake moving to reinforce,” a different voice shouted.

  “I sure hope they can hold the middle or this battle will be over soon,” Kolar said. “No time to worry about that now, though. We have our own problems,” he said, pointing.

  About one hundred robot soldiers were advancing on the southern f
ace of the cliff. James pulled most of the man facing the north side and redeployed them. A corporal facing west pointed to another group of about one hundred robots approaching from that direction.

  “Stay focused!” James shouted, running up and down the line. “Concentrate fire on the robots in the front of the group! Don’t let them get to the top of the hill.”

  “1219!” The radio shouted. “We can’t hold them. They hit us about two hundred strong. We couldn’t hold them. There’s not enough time to retreat. We’re going to give them hell for as long as we can, but this peak is lost. They’ll overrun us within a few minutes.”

  Another transmission followed. “1483! We can’t hold them either. They hit us with a little more than one hundred. We took out about half, but we can’t hold it. There’s no point in running.” There was a pause before the voice continued. “It’s been a pleasure.” Silence followed.

  Gunfire erupted all along the southern edge of James’ location as the robots closed. The sound was deafening. Gunpowder lingered in the air. The robots were halfway up the mountainside, about a quarter of a mile away. A moment later the soldiers on the west face started shooting as well.

  They had thirty eight working EMP rifles and James had them distributed evenly along the ridge. The soldiers firing them were very careful to line their shots up before taking them. So far they were holding the position. The gunfire slowed the robots long enough for an EMP blast to disable them. But James cursed inwardly when he looked over the edge. They were facing just the leading edge. A large cluster approached on both sides of the hill and James didn’t think they would be able to repel the attack.

  “1521,” a tired voice panted. “We’re out.” A large explosion punctuated the message. “We gave them hell, and there’s only about twenty of them left here, but we’ve got nothing left. No ammo. Our EMPs are done. We have maybe two minutes before we totally fall.”

  James tried to stay focused on his own hillside. The radio broke again. “1701, under attack. We have about two hundred approaching from the east…”

  The robot army on James’ hill surged forward again. The soldiers fired faster and tried to keep pace, but still the robots came. James and his troops poured gunfire down the hill, but the robots kept coming.

  To the far right, a few robots leapt up to the top of the ridge and began attacking the troops by hand. A scream startled James and he looked and saw more robots had breached on the left. A loud rustling in front of him got his attention. As soon as he looked another robot leapt thirty feet, over the crest of the ridge and over his line of troops, knocking James to the ground. James looked up and froze. Edgar loomed over him.

  James stared into Edgar’s eyes. They looked like Edgar’s eyes…but that’s because they were Edgar’s eyes, he realized. He stared into them momentarily, but any of the life that had been there before was gone. Edgar raised his fist, but James quickly leveled the EMP rifle and fired. That’s not Edgar. That’s not Edgar, they killed him already.

  The line began to fall apart. The robots were closing and cutting the troops down by the dozens. James looked over and saw several robots impersonating his forest rangers, cutting down the soldiers. He was enraged. He leveled his rifle and destroyed those robots.

  The survivors began to pull themselves back into a tight cluster, guns facing out in every direction.

  And then something unexpected happened. It took James a second to process it. There was a sound, a familiar sound fighting it’s way over the gunfire and shouting. Helicopters! The thudding clap of helicopter blades started out as a quiet rumble, but quickly turned into a deafening roar as close to a hundred helicopters appeared from the northwest. Blackhawks, Chinooks, and Apaches.

  James scanned the robots and noticed that they were faltering. He quickly looked at the helicopters and noticed some metal boxes mounted below the Chinooks. Frequency Jammers! He looked again. The door gunners of the black hawks had a couple of EMP rifles. They looked unfinished and crude compared to the one James had, but they seemed to work. Even the Apache attack helicopters had some sort of new attachment under the wings where the missiles are typically mounted.

  A new voice came over the intercom. “Hang tight, the cavalry has arrived.”

  James’ troops renewed their vigor and fought while the helicopters provided support. After a few minutes, the fighting was over.

  “You boys sit tight, and rest. We’ll scout around and clean up any stragglers,” a pilot said.

  Friday, November 21st

  The aftermath of the battle was a fog for James. Of all of the peaks on the ridge, only two peaks managed to hold out until the helicopters arrived. His peak, and peak 1701, where Colonel Ryan was. The helicopters arrived just as the last defenders of Peak 1521 were killed. Technically, the battle was a victory, the robot army was obliterated and turned into lifeless hunks of flesh-covered metal. But it didn’t feel like a victory. James felt empty.

  He was loaded into a helicopter and taken to a temporary field base in Rome, Georgia. The survivors of the battle were ferried down in small droves by the cavalry. James was surprised at how few of them there were. When the final results came back, only one hundred and forty three people survived. 1,797 people gave their lives on that ridge. James was sad to learn Colonel Ryan and Lieutenant Vasquez were both among the casualties. Captain Thompson was wounded, but expected to survive.

  The commanding officer of the cavalry group had a lot of questions for James. He learned that this was Colonel Ryan’s commander, Lieutenant General Nicosia, the commander of the 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team. He brought the remainder of his unit and the entire 1st Infantry Brigade with him.

  General Nicosia shook James’ hand. “I have to admit; when I first saw your initial reports I didn’t believe a word you said. But Ryan did.” He paused and James could have sworn a momentary glimpse of sorrow washed over his face. The General continued undaunted. “I was pissed when he disobeyed my orders and went to help. But then he told me it was real. I trusted him, but I still wasn’t sure what to make of it.”

  The General motioned for James to walk with him as he spoke. “When you boys took the campus in Alabama Ryan had Vasquez send me videos of the aliens you captured. I had to take it seriously then. Your friend, Dr. Kosnick, sent over the plans for the generators. And we set out to work on building some.”

  James frowned. “How’d you get the EMP rifles? There’s no way you had time to build that many.”

  The general chuckled. “The ones you liberated from the Redstone Arsenal were the second generation prototypes. They were marked to replace the first generation prototypes that we were currently testing out in Afghanistan. We just happened to have a bunch of them left over from our field trials lying around.”

  “Well, that’s fortunate,” James said.

  “You have no idea.” The general stopped walking. “You boys almost didn’t make it off that ridge. But more than that, we almost didn’t survive at all.”

  James tilted his head in confusion.

  The general elaborated. “For one thing, the concept of this invasion was so outrageous that no one took it seriously. They almost got in without anyone noticing at all. If you hadn’t raised the alarm, who knows what might have happened. As it is they managed to penetrate a good portion of the world’s leadership and government. But more than that, the timing was perfect for us.”

  “What do you mean?” James asked.

  The general explained. “If they had invaded us a decade ago stopping them would have been terribly difficult. If they had invaded fifteen years ago, it would have been impossible. This technology was highly experimental and not as readily available then. Even today it’s still in its infancy.”

  James stood in silence as that sobering thought sunk in.

  The general motioned for him to continue walking. “Now, we’re in the process of securing our nation, and our world, and building more of these defensive weapons on a larger scale, just in case.”

&nb
sp; “What’s going to happen now?” James asked.

  “A few of the robots will be dismantled and studied,” the general said. “The rest of them will be melted down for scrap. We’re also working with Dr. Kosnick to build a whole network of global scanners. If any of those robots ever come back we’ll be able to detect them as soon as they make landfall.”

  “That will make it easier to mount a defense,” James offered.

  “And with your help in cracking their language we’ve got a satellite in orbit warning them to stay away from our planet. We told them that the rest of their robots were destroyed and that we have the means and will to repel any future attacks.”

  “Hopefully that does the trick,” James said, inwardly wondering if that might actually bring a challenge that invites invasion.

  “The entire 502nd Infantry Battalion will be awarded the Silver Star for their bravery in combat. Vasquez, Thompson, and most of rest of the leadership will all get the Congressional Medal of Honor. It’s an unprecedented number of medals to give away for a single battle, but this was not an ordinary battle by any definition. Ryan, Hicks, and a few others will get the Medal of Honor. And you and your cadre will be presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.”

  “I don’t care about any awards,” James said.

  “You might not,” General Nicosia explained, “but it’s for public morale that they see you. Most of the public is learning about this for the first time.”

  “What I really want to know is how they managed to impersonate us so well. Those robot imposters knew things that only the living person should have known,” James said with a frown, stopping in his tracks.

  General Nicosia nodded. Our researchers have looked into that. Apparently when they said that they wanted to be us, they meant that literally. Part of their process in assuming our identities was to connect the victims and download their consciousness into the robot brains. That’s how they were able to remember things from before.”