by Ben Winston
Colonel Petrie ordered his Sergeants Major to call for immediate resupply and reinforcements shortly after the battle started. When the Sergeants Major asked why, the officer said it was necessary to keep curious eyes from falling on the community that was keeping them alive.
The Sergeants Major smiled and nodded. “I’ll make sure everything is covered, Sir.” Officers could be a funny lot, but the Sergeants Major liked this one. He knew when to keep his mouth shut. He immediately put together a list of what would need to be done in order to make it look like they had been fighting using their own resources and supplies. He formed the plan and made it work.
The resupply drops took an hour and a half to get to them. Their reinforcements took two hours, since the response was a lot larger than anticipated. The Marines had to scramble to get all the advanced weapons off the field before the new troops arrived.
There had been a satellite monitoring the action, but both Star and Mathias had been censoring it to hide the advanced weaponry. Considering what was going on in space, Ty was surprised that the two AI had the time to do that.
Luke and Elias quickly got their crews busy and built makeshift buildings outside the gate to use as aide stations, and a mess hall. One of the buildings had been placed over the top of the command center the drones had dug, and all the Marines dropped the advanced rifles there so everything could be destroyed at once.
While Ty was getting his people changed back into Earth combat uniforms, the scientists and their helpers were busy making everything in their areas capable of passing an inspection by government investigators. The larger weapons systems that couldn’t be lowered into the ground, were camouflaged to look like something else. The guns and rocket launchers on the top of the bluff turned into two observatories and an atmospheric/weather research station. The gun in the water tower, turned back into a water tower.
Three construction drones, with cloaking modifications done to them, recovered all the mines that had been placed. By the time the ‘reinforcements’ arrived to relieve the Marines, the fighting was over, and everything looked normal.
Alan met Colonel Petrie and his staff in their newly rebuilt command tent.
“How bad is it, Colonel?” Alan asked by way of greeting.
“Not as bad as it could have been, ‘Agent Smith’,” the Colonel replied. “Who are you folks, really? There is no way in hell you’re DARPA or anything else associated with the US Government.”
“What makes you ask that, Colonel?” Alan asked innocently.
One of the other officers snorted, and two others chuckled. The Sergeants Major chuckled. “Son, remind me never to play poker with you.”
Alan smiled back. “I don’t play cards anymore, Sergeant Major, it’s no fun when you always win.” He turned to the Colonel. “If you’re still here when everything calms down, I’ll give you folks a tour and tell you everything. Until then, I am to express our very sincere gratitude at keeping our secrets.”
“What are you going to do about the dead aliens?” Colonel Petrie asked.
“Leave them. I’m sure the government will want something to study. Unfortunately, all of their weapons got destroyed beyond any hope of salvage, but I’m sure they’ll still try,” Alan replied, smiling innocently.
“So that’s what those gizmos were doing. We had been wondering. I can understand leaving the bodies, but why destroy the weapons?” one of the other men said. He wore the rank of Captain, and his name tag read ‘Thompson’.
“One of our goals is to make sure no one government on the planet gets advanced weaponry to use against the other. That’s the reason we set the rifles we gave you to self-destruct after a set amount of time. We want to make life on this planet better, not worse. If you discover how to do it on your own, that’s a different matter, but we will do everything we can in order to ensure none of our weapons or those of the aliens fall into governmental hands.
“Right now, up in Wyoming, Colorado and parts of Nebraska, we have people and equipment recovering the downed craft from the airstrike that was coming here. Our fighters managed to shoot them all down before they got into range. Just so you know, a flight of fighter craft from Peterson Air Force base was also shot down. Only two of the pilots managed to survive, and neither of them are in very good condition.” Alan finished. Further conversation was stopped by the arrival of a two star General.
The Guard yelled attention, and everyone in the tent, except Alan came to attention as the burly man entered and walked up to the Colonel, who saluted. “Welcome to New Mexico, General.”
“Thanks, Colonel. You know, you could have saved some for us!” the man smiled.
Colonel Petrie smiled. “Sorry Sir, they were a bit insistent about wanting to die, so being good Marines, we obliged them.”
The General chuckled. “Well done and very good work. Fighting aliens with advanced weaponry couldn’t have been easy. Rest assured that this battle will be studied intimately so we can learn what to do if we need to do this again. Who is the Civilian?”
“Sir, may I introduce Agent Smith of DARPA. I don’t know if you’re familiar with our original mission out here or not...” Petrie said, but the General stopped him.
“Yes I am, the Agent that doesn’t exist overseeing the project that doesn’t exist. I’m sure by the end of this day, this battle won’t exist either. I saw the buildings and whatnot being worked on out there. Is that you’re doing, Agent?” the General asked.
Now that he was facing Alan, he could read the man’s name tag. The first thing Alan noticed was that he was an Army General, not a Marine. His name was Keller and the unit patch was for the eighty-second airborne strategic assault team.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you General. Yes, the head of the operation thought it would be helpful to get the construction teams out here and get some places built to help with wounded and other needs for the troops. I think he was talking about dragging some empty trailers they had out here for makeshift hospitals,” Alan replied. “They are planning on making some helicopter landing areas as well.”
Keller was nodding his head. “Damn helpful, please tell him thank you for the assistance. Now, can someone please tell me what the sam-hell happened out here? Why would aliens travel across the fuckin’ galaxy just to come down here and get their asses handed to them by a battalion of Marines?”
Alan snorted. “Honestly General, I have no flippin’ idea. We’re not working on anything that earth-shattering. I would have expected one of the oil companies to attack us, but Aliens? Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Why would the oil companies attack you?” Keller asked.
“Well, most of the research being done here is new power systems. My part of the pie is the possible military applications we might exploit out of it. But, if they get this working on a larger scale, the oil companies are going to be going out of business,” Alan explained. “When you’re ready, I can show you what’s going on in there.”
“There’s no time like the present. I need to make a report to Washington soon, and it would be a great help if I can tell them what I saw,” Keller replied.
Alan put his hand to his ear, to show he was calling someone. “Control, this is Smith, I need a couple of passenger carts out at the Marine command tent. There is a General here that would like to see what we’re doing in there.”
“They’re on their way, Alan. Make sure you avoid building twelve until the last, they’re still getting everything set up,” Carl replied from the command center.
“That’ll be fine, Control. Thank you, Smith out,” Alan replied. He looked at the General. “We’ll have a couple of go-carts out front in a couple of minutes, General.”
The man nodded. “Is anything in there dangerous, Agent Smith?”
“Only in building twelve Sir, we’ll be stopping by that building last since they are still inspecting it to make sure nothing was damaged,” Alan replied. “There is a large hydrogen production and storage facility in there.�
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“Ah, I understand. I take it then that the research being done here is based on hydrogen as an alternative fuel source?” Keller asked.
“Not exactly Sir. Hydrogen is a viable alternative to fossil fuels, however, production, and storage, both after production as well as when it’s in the vehicle are an issue. Most of what goes on here is along those lines. Imagine filling a tank with twenty-five gallons of water, and maybe have to add more in a year or two,” Alan explained. A beep from outside let them know the carts had arrived, and the tour was on.
Chapter 17
Approximately forty thousand feet
Wyoming, USA
Earth, Sol system
Earlier, just before the Caldarian landings at Talos began, Ghost Squadron was heading for intercept of the Caldarian fighters and bombers. On their way north, they caught up to a flight of F-22 Raptors heading for the same place.
“Corvis, let me try to talk to these guys, maybe I can warn them to stay back a little,” Ghost Three, Fireball, asked.
“You can’t honestly believe it’ll do any good, do you?” Corvis replied.
“No, but it’s worth trying. I can catch up to you guys when I’m done,” Fireball replied. “Please Sir? I used to fly with these guys. I know their families.”
Corvis sighed. Sometimes he really hated command. “Okay, but you can’t let them know who you are, and you need to make sure no one on the ground can hear you. If they turn on you, get the hell out of there. You have two minutes, after that, we’re going to need you out front.”
“Roger, Ghost Three, breaking formation. Be back before you know it.” With that, Fireball dropped out of formation, and flew to the Raptors. He dropped in beside the lead plane. Reading the name under the cockpit, he smiled. It was his old flight leader.
Setting up the comm, he made sure that only this wing could hear him. “Banshee Four-Three, this is TDF Ghost-Three. You guys are heading for a serious ass-whooping.”
“Who is this? Get off this frequency right fucking now!” Colonel Johnson, A.K.A. Banshee Four-Three, replied.
“Colonel, look to your left.” Fireball said.
“Holy SHIT!” the veteran pilot said. “Who the hell are you?”
“I actually can’t tell you that, Sir. But I meant what I said. The targets you are chasing are alien fighter craft. I know you’re proud of the Raptors, but you are way out-classed here. They will blow you out of the sky, and not even slow down. We need you to keep your distance, and let us handle this,” Fireball said.
“Who is ‘us’? And why does your voice sound familiar?” the Colonel asked.
“We are a top secret agency that protects Earth from this type of threat. The rest of my wing has already gone ahead, but I stayed back to try to warn you. If you engage those ships, you will die. It’s that simple Sir.”
“Bishop? What the hell are you doing up here flying something like that?” one of the other pilots asked.
“Sorry, I don’t have time to explain any better, I need to get back to my wing. Please Colonel, think about what I said. With that, Fireball pushed his throttle forward, and shot ahead of the fighters so quickly that he was out of their sight in seconds.
“Bishop, wait!” Colonel Johnson called.
“Banshee flight! Come in Banshee flight!” the radio suddenly came back to life.
“This is Banshee Four-Three, what’s up, Command?” Johnson replied, looking ahead, trying to catch a glimpse of the strange craft that had been beside him.
“You disappeared for a few seconds there. It must have been a malfunction. Good to know your still out there,” the controller said.
“We didn’t go anywhere, Control.” He paused. “Say, are the hostiles still the only targets on your scopes?”
“Affirmative, Banshee. Isn’t that enough for you?” Control asked.
“No, they’re plenty. I was just making sure we don’t get surprised by anything,” Colonel Johnson replied.
“Aren’t you going to tell them what just happened, Sir?” his wingman asked over the plane to plane radio.
“What’s to tell them? They wouldn’t believe me anyway,” Johnson replied. “When Bishop was with us, he was a good pilot, and usually knew what he was talking about. We still have to go check this out, but be careful, let no one get too stupid. Copy?”
He got five replies, and felt a little better. He was certain that no one else knew it, but the Colonel had heard that ‘Bishop’ had passed away three months ago in a car accident. The warning the man delivered haunted him like a message from the grave.
"Ghost Three returning to wing," Fireball reported as he accelerated to catch up.
“Just in time, Fireball.” Corvis then addressed the whole wing. “Okay, boys and girls, this is the real deal. Arm all weapons, and raise shields heavy front. The bad guys are still twenty thousand feet above us, so we’ll come up from under them, and blow them to hell. Execute in fifteen seconds. The Bombers are the primary target, everything else is dessert. G’due Vreen everyone!” Covis said, wishing everyone good luck in Talosian.
Although in the atmosphere of a planet like Earth, the laser weapons had a diminished range, the Caldarians were still well in range of Ghost Squadron’s lasers, however, they didn’t fire them for one simple reason, they didn’t want to shoot down the missiles they all launched at the bombers.
The Caldarians couldn’t detect the fighters of Ghost Squadron, but they could detect the missiles. Once those deadly weapons left the racks, the Caldarian fighters reacted quickly. They immediately broke formation, and moved to put themselves between the inbound missiles and the bombers they were locked onto.
The move did manage to break the locks of a good share of the missiles but enough of them got through, simply flying around the enemy fighters, to cause considerable armor damage to two of the four bombers. It wasn’t enough to make them turn back, but it would make killing them easier later. The rest of the missiles switched targets to the fighters, and the fight was on. Three missiles managed to impact the shields on their targets but did little physical damage. The rest of the missiles were either lured off by counter measures, or shot down by another fighter.
Lasers blasting away, Ghost Squadron flew through the enemy formation, so closely that, for a moment, they could all see each other. It was enough of a frustration for the Caldarians, that they broke formation to pursue this new enemy. It was shortly after that they discovered that they could not get a lock on the strange craft. On the heels of this discovery, they also realized one other very important fact.
They had left the bombers unprotected.
Ghost Squadron flipped around and, on the next pass, blew two of the larger ships out of the sky. From there, the melee quickly degenerated into a straight up dog fight, with the last two bombers trying to sneak away to complete their mission. They hadn’t gotten very far when they ran into something that actually delayed them for a moment – Banshee flight had caught up.
The reason Banshee delayed the bombers was because the bombers thought it was another squadron of super ship like the ones that had drawn off their fighters. Because of earlier battle damage, and expecting to be destroyed at any second, the two heavy ships dove for the planet. When they did, they presented the hot plasma exhaust from their engines to the heat seeking missiles carried by the US Air Force Raptors.
Banshee flight dove after the two fleeing enemy ships, if for no other reason than to keep track of them. However, when they got a lock on the two craft, the fighters launched sixteen AMRAAM IV air to air missiles.
Under normal circumstances, the missiles would have done no damage to the bombers. However, both of the Caldarian ships had sustained moderate to heavy damage in the earlier combat. The first two or three missiles did little more than finish destroying the aft shields, but the rest of the missiles, either through luck or because of previous damage, managed to destroy the engines in both ships. One of the ships took enough damage to overload its reactor, causing it to d
etonate, which in turn set off the warheads they were carrying.
Luckily, the EMP emitted by the explosions did, relatively, very little damage; however, several people on the ground were blinded and a few badly burned by the high-altitude blasts. There was extensive damage to crops and livestock. The state of Wyoming, parts of Nebraska, Colorado, and Montana lost all unshielded electronics, resulting in a multi-state power outage.
Of the fighters of Banshee flight, none of them returned to base. Colonel Johnson died when his fighter blew up from the heat of the initial blast. A couple of the other pilots managed to eject before their ships exploded, but only three made it to the ground alive, and one of them died on the way to a hospital. The other two were blind and severely burned. Another died three days later from radiation sickness. But the last pilot somehow stayed alive.
While Banshee flight turned to pursue the two bombers, Ghost squadron was finishing up with the last of the fighters. Fireball and Hera disengaged the fighters to go after the bombers. They didn’t get very far before the bombers exploded. Of the pilots that had eject, only one of their chutes actually deployed, and that pilot was already dead.
The two Talosian fighters ‘caught the other two pilots, and made sure they made it to the ground in a place where they would be quickly recovered. Then they returned to the rest of the wing. With the fighters and bombers destroyed, Ghost squadron wanted to go after the carrier, but their base was still under attack.
F.S.S. Star Dancer
Selene (Earth’s moon) Orbit
Sol Sector.
Combat location: Dark Palace
As the attack on Talos began, Ian silently wished them luck and looked to see where he could hit the Caldarians again.
“How is the shell game doing?” he asked.
“It is certainly causing the enemy no end of heartburn. They’ve gotten more cautious, and at the first sign of trouble they have taken to backing off to see if they can figure out where the weapons are. I think they’ve figured out that what’s hitting them are drones, but that doesn’t lessen the damage they are taking,” the tech answered.