“Yes, it really did. You broke them, you know. I’m going to have some fun writing this up for Kelly - Bernard dying, Smith attacking me and you saving the entire damn day. Timed it perfectly, too.” Smiled Ryder. “Right, for now - we’re over to the senate building. Get first moving on us and let’s go.”
XV / After
Ryder sat, cradling a cold beer in the mess, his feet up on the table in front of him. Black Canyon base was quiet, most of the men on leave now that new troops had been rotated in from around the world to fortify and patrol the capital city in the wake of the recent attack.
Not the best beer he’d ever had, but he couldn’t think of many better right now. The entire planet was in upheaval. It was official - an alien attack. The one thing nobody with an ounce of sense had ever expected.
Sure, he thought, there had been madmen with notions of little green men as far back as humanity had existed but everyone with common sense had always said “We’re alone in the cosmos.” How wrong they’d been.
Little was known about their attackers - rumours said a few survivors had been taken prisoner but he was a sergeant again, no longer privy to the whispers and gossip of officer circles and what little he did know came from the restored SatNet.
The attack had been surgical and deliberate - a thrust directly at the planetary senate and the ruling elite - and the first victim had been the SatNet, taken out at the same time as the Electromagnetic attack on Union City.
He snorted and took another gulp of beer. There was at least one positive from the entire shitstorm - every associate Union member had been granted full membership. Couldn’t face an extraterrestrial attack as a fragmented planet, after all. He’d gotten his citizenship. All it had cost was over 20’000 dead civilians and 15,000 dead soldiers.
Nothing had changed, though, at least not yet. Couldn’t wipe away 20 years of prejudice. It would take time for muttered sneers of “Classer” to fade away.
One thing even a Sergeant could learn though was the target of the orbital attacks - the airport and adjoining military base housing 10000 troops. Only 3 people had survived. The alien force had known exactly what to attack.
Media were suggesting they’d been watching for months, but the Union Navy had been running their first ever shakedown run on an intra-solar warship - a cruiser named the UNF Yuri Gagarin. To the moon and back in 4 hours, they claimed.
Maybe it didn’t sound like much, but 0.01% of lightspeed was fast.
Speed aside, it also had the most advanced sensor suite known to mankind. The crew had been forced to watch powerless as the alien fleet of 3 vessels of similar size to the Yuri had swept past at more than double its top speed 2 hours before the attack began. There had been little they could do.
They attacked anyway and before being chased off, suffered serious damage after following the alien ships into Earth orbit and challenging them head on. The alien vessels hadn’t shown any interest in finishing the Yuri off once it was clear it had been crippled. During the desperate attack, the Yuri managed to take out more 2 dozen landing ships with its railguns.
Without the Yuri, Union City and the leadership of planet Earth would have fallen. They were being hailed as heroes planet-wide, and Commander Ruzian, the ship's captain, was in line to receive the highest award the Union could bestow - the Military Cross with platinum leaves.
To his own amusement, he - along with Major Kelly, Captain Reynolds, Captain Ramos of Echo Company and Captain Da Silva of Oscar company - had been nominated for the next highest - the Iridium Star. The ceremony was next week, and he honestly couldn’t give a shit about attending.
“Sergeant, feet off that table. Were you born in a field?” A voice snapped from behind him.
Turning - and taking down his feet - Ryder was confronted by the grinning face of Lieutenant Colonel Xayne. “Sir! What are you doing here?”
“You know me, Ryder. I enjoy stretching my legs now and then.” replied Xayne.
Well built and handsome, he was every inch the classic ‘American Hero’ of old Hollywood from his chiselled jaw to his ramrod-straight spine. Didn’t hurt he grew up a few miles from the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles either.
“Now, at ease, Sergeant. We’re going to have a chat.”
“About Union City?” queried Ryder, raising his eyebrows. He knew he’d been thorough in his report, even down to Smith attacking him - both he and Wu had been exonerated on that particular issue.
Unfortunately in Wu’s case, it was posthumously. He had been devastated to find out after the dust had settled that Wu had fallen in the assault on the plaza, taking a shot to the chest from an alien rifle point blank when they’d been charged. He had been a good man and a good soldier.
Both Wu and Bernard were receiving the Iridium Star posthumously - the first time in thirty years since the founding of the Union that the award had been awarded in such a way. Ryder was glad they were being honoured.
“About Union City, indeed” replied Xayne. “But first, I have something for you.” He passed a small velvet pouch over to Ryder.
Opening it and tipping the contents onto his hand, he couldn’t keep the confusion from his face. “I don’t understand. This is a Captain’s rank insignia.”
“Yes, it is, Captain. I had a chat with Major Kelly and decided that we couldn’t have the officer who led the attack that broke the enemy's back remain as a Sergeant.”
Ryder placed the insignia on the table between them, “I don’t understand though, sir. Captain? I’m not even a Lieutenant.”
“You were. Before all this mess, I mean,” replied Xayne, “And it seems that someone in HQ decided we should remove that little incident in Argentina and subsequent court martial from your record. It’s only a straight up promotion now.” Xayne grinned at him. “That’s the good news, though. The bad news is you’re now permanent CO of Bravo Company. I remember how much you love training routines.”
Ryder let out a loud groan. “You mean bastard!”
Xayne laughed, “Don’t worry - we’re all being transferred to the Navy. There’s not going to be an army anymore, and Black Canyon as a whole are going to be assigned to the new lunar naval docks.”
“Don’t worry?! Did you read my report? I was in a plane that was shot down by aliens, and you’re telling me you’re sending me into space and not to worry? Can I refuse this? Here,” said Ryder, pushing the insignia towards Xayne, “take the damn thing!”
Xayne laughed again, fending off Ryder’s attempts to hand the badge back to him before becoming serious again. “Ryder, you broke them. Utterly. You took down their commander face to face - don’t think I haven’t seen the drone footage - and your company accounted for over 1000 enemy casualties. Yes,” continued Xayne, “I know you think you only got lucky by taking out whatever explosives they had in those crates but it was your company - by your order - that did it. You’re a hero, and we need you out there.”
“Oh, and one more thing. I’m going to be the base commander. They’re bumping me up to Colonel. Well, Captain, apparently - navy can’t keep anything simple. You’re going to be a Lieutenant, but that’s Captain in navy-speak, so get used to it.”
Ryder let out an exasperated sigh and shrugged his shoulders. “So now I’m a citizen and I can’t even enjoy the perks? What was the point in going through all of that?”
“For Earth, Captain. That’s all that matters now. Well, nearly all. Have you any more beer?” asked Xayne with a mock-serious look on his face. “We’re shipping out in 14 days. Until then, we might as well enjoy the last comforts of Earth we can.” Grabbing a bottle from under the table and twisting off the cap, he raised it and shouted “For Earth!”
“For Earth, goddamn it!” replied Ryder, touching his bottle to Xayne’s.
Epilogue
Genius. Visionary. So many labels, he thought. I believed them, blinded by my own hubris. I damned Earth, the blood of innocents is on my hands and my hands alone. In his darkened office, Doctor Thompson sat
silently, kept company only by a half-empty bottle of scotch whisky.
“It was all my fault…” he whispered to the empty room. “Mine!” he said, voice rising. “My arrogance, The chance to be the first man to discover intelligent life!”
He looked at the framed picture hanging on the wall in front of him, its glass cracked by a ceramic mug flung in anger. The first interstellar probe sent out by man. Twenty years, it had taken. Twenty years of sweat, frustration and inspiration.
His marriage had collapsed. His son hadn’t spoken to him in ten years. But he’d done it, by God he’d done it. He’d completed the work started by Alcubierre and invented a way to travel faster than light. He’d achieved the impossible. He’d outsmarted Einstein, for crying out loud!
So proud of his creations, engines that could create artificial wormholes and allow travel through them. Fitted to probes, they had been dispatched to dozens of nearby star systems, promising systems that the last 100 years of study had suggested may contain life.
He had insisted adding plaques and data-caches to every probe. About humanity, where they lived, how they lived, biology, philosophy, history.
He’d never thought for a moment that when - if - they made contact, they would be in danger. After all, any race who could decrypt the data they sent out and send a reply of their own couldn’t possibly be so barbaric to assume Humanity was a danger.
The last words of the alien invaders - transmitted over all radio frequencies as they left orbit - told him everything he needed to know. It told him how wrong he’d been.
“Earth. We have seen your history. We were slaves. We will not be slaves again.”
He’d spent 5 straight days reading the message again, and again, and again, until he passed out with exhaustion at his desk. He had told them everything they needed to know about humanity, and everything they feared - here is a race with a history of violence and bloodshed, and they know where you are.
It was all his fault.
He picked up a picture of his son - the only one he still had, and smiled. His eyes began to droop. The overdose of morphine he’d added to his drink was starting to work. The world would hate him for what he’d done - but it would never hate him as much as he hated himself.
His last thought was, ironically, the same one that would torment Captain Ryder in the coming years when the information became public - which probe was the one that led them to us? Where did they come from?
His eyes closed gently and his breathing slowed, before he slumped forwards onto his desk and breathed no more.
To you, the reader: A thanks.
If you enjoyed this book or received value from it in any way, then I’d like to ask you for a favor: would you be kind enough to leave a review for this book on Amazon? It’d be greatly appreciated!
The fall of Union (Rise of the Union Book 1) Page 7