Tree of Liberty (Book 3 of The Humanity Unlimited Saga)

by Terry Mixon

  The ex-FBI agent accelerated the SUV and turned on flashing lights and a siren.

  “Won’t this draw a little too much attention?” he asked dryly, trying to keep from worrying about Jess.

  She grinned. “Have you ever seen a cop stop another cop? No. Does it sound bad?”

  He nodded, his stomach roiling. “Real bad. I’d better call my father so he doesn’t accidentally walk back into the firefight.”

  Harry dialed his father’s number.

  “I’m a little busy right now,” the old man said quietly. “Can this wait?”

  “That depends on how much you value your skin,” Harry said bluntly. “The heavy-worlders are attacking the French base. Don’t open a gate to it.”

  The other man swore. “Jess is there. Is she okay?”

  “I don’t know. Now doesn’t seem like the right time to call and ask, either. We’re going to have to force our way back into the gate room. Rex has virtually all of my security forces at the base, thank God.”

  “Is that going to be enough?”

  “I hope so. I’ll call you back when I know anything else.”

  He checked his watch. It would take them hours to get to the building holding Brenda’s gate. Everything would be long settled by the time he got there. He felt incredibly helpless. Things had gone wrong so quickly.

  * * * * *

  Clayton quickly explained the situation to the dignitaries. Needless to say, his news put a damper on their enthusiasm for the pact they’d just agreed to.

  “That’s bad,” Vaughn said roughly. “Will you be able to contain them?”

  “Probably. The real trick will be stopping them from bringing in too many people to overwhelm before we get more people in place. To do anything about that, we need to get soldiers there as soon as possible.”

  “I have an idea,” Kevin McHugh said.

  “Trot it out, young man,” Clayton said when the boy paused. “You have my complete attention.”

  “Did you ever see the original Stargate movie? It has gates similar to the Asharim ones. The fictional US government in the franchise sent a nuke through the stargate to make sure no one could overwhelm the people protecting it if things went bad.”

  Clayton hadn’t seen the movie, but his assistant had explained it in a general way. “That does sound like a capital idea, but I’m a little short of nuclear devices. I suspect our friends are in similar circumstances.”

  “True, but you have a US warship impounded here in New Zealand. Tell me they don’t have portable nukes locked up on board.”

  That gave Clayton pause. He had no idea if they did or not, but it sounded like a reasonable possibility. They also had trained soldiers.

  By now, Commander Krueger and his people were back aboard their ship. Clayton had convinced the New Zealanders to only make an example of Ulysses and let the rest go.

  If anyone could save their bacon now, it was Krueger and his people. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t be able to lift a finger to save them without orders.

  “I’ll try to get their assistance, but I’m not hopeful,” he said after a long moment. “To do that, I need to convince Secretary of State Queen to assist us. That seems…unlikely.”

  Well, unlikely wasn’t impossible. He’d give it his best shot. Jess’s life might depend on getting more people into the French base fast. Hell, all their lives might rest on stopping the invasion in progress.

  He pulled out his phone and dialed information. “I need the main number for the State Department,” he told the operator.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Queen rubbed his tired eyes. He’d thought things couldn’t get any worse, but he’d been wrong. The damned Chinese were mobilizing all around the globe.

  Not only had they blown up the lab full of alien technology, they seemed intent on making an issue out of the Yucatán Spaceport. They wanted war.

  That wasn’t a big shock, he supposed. This day had been coming for years now. Their timing sucked, though.

  It had to be the damned Mars mission. They assumed—as did he—that Rogers had found the motherlode on Mars. They wanted all the marbles for themselves and they were willing to kill as many people as needed to make that happen.

  That made the next call he received inevitable, but infuriating. He took it as soon as his assistant told him who was calling.

  “You have a lot of nerve calling me,” he snarled into the phone.

  “I’m sure,” Ambassador Chen said cordially. “My superiors didn’t want me to do so, but I feel that we shouldn’t make the same mistakes as our neighbors a century ago.

  “China views your actions against us as an act of war and we are responding to is as such. You will no doubt receive word of military action in the very near future. Regrettable as that is, you precipitated this action yourselves.”

  “Liar,” Queen said bluntly. “You already knew about the alien technology, so don’t try to spin this as anything other than a power grab. You want what Rogers found on Mars.”

  Chen chuckled. “Of course we do. How could we not? We shall have it, too.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  His assistant stuck his head in and started making frantic gestures.

  Queen muted the call. “What?”

  “Something just blew up the Mars ship we bought from the Indians. It’s gone.”

  He sat there, stunned for a moment. “Goddamn Chinese. Did they fire a missile at it?”

  The man shrugged. “Our national defense assets would’ve seen something like that. Maybe something from their ship?”

  “Or a satellite already in orbit. Can we strike their ship?”

  The man shook his head. “It must’ve already boosted from orbit. I got word of that just before they blew our ship up. It happened on the other side of the planet, so we only just got the notice.”

  Even if Queen called the president for authority to fire a ballistic missile at the Chinese ship, it was going to be too far away to do any good.

  “Crap.”

  Chen had been blathering in his ear all this time, but Queen hadn’t been paying attention. He cut the man off.

  “You bastard. You blew up our Mars ship. We had people up there.”

  “Casualties happen in war,” the other man said urbanely. “The loss of life is of course regrettable. You will recall I did deliver our declaration of war before hostilities began, however. It is all as required by international law.”

  “Screw you and screw your declaration. We’ll burn you to the ground.”

  He slammed the phone down hard.

  Now all he needed was a way to hurt them. He had to call the president and tell him what was happening. The military needed to get into a more aggressive posture and make the bastards pay for this.

  His frazzled assistant stuck his head back in. “There’s another call you need to take. Line two.”

  “Dammit, what now? Are the Russians shooting at us, too?”

  “It’s Clayton Rodgers.”

  Perfect. The bastard had probably called to gloat.

  He snatched up his handset and pressed the button for the active line. “I’d say you have a lot of nerve calling me like this, but I’m busy. What do you want? To gloat?”

  “I’m not sure what I’d gloat about, but no,” the old man said. “The situation has changed and not in a good way. The Earth is in danger.”

  “No shit. If this goes nuclear, millions could die.”

  There was a long pause from the other end of the connection. “Do you have me bugged? How could you possibly know I was calling because I need one of your nuclear devices?”

  Queen opened his mouth to say something offensive and then realized he had no idea what the man was talking about. Obviously not the Chinese.

  “You need to start over,” he told Rogers slowly. “I’m talking about the Chinese declaring war on the US and destroying our Mars ship. What crisis are you talking about and why would you possibly need a nuke?”

&nbs
p; “Someone activated a gate to Earth and is attacking Harry’s people. They’re the best, but he never had a lot of them. If these heavy-worlders get a hold on Earth, they might pour millions of soldiers through with advanced weapons. Hell, they might have the Asharim right behind them.”

  Queen buried his head in his hands. “Christ. You led them right to us.”

  “I seriously doubt that. If anything, Kathleen and Nathan did. We never had control over them. They were on the ship that the Asharim left watching our system that jumped out through the gate in the outer system. They had the address to the base in France.”

  “What gate in the outer system and what base in France? How many gates and bases do you have?

  “That hardly matters and we don’t have time for me to explain in detail. I’m in New Zealand, where you tried to kidnap me, standing in the remains of another base. I’m sure Commander Krueger is briefing his commanding officer about the gate here as we speak. He’s on his ship. The one the New Zealanders impounded.

  “I want to get them back here with every man they have available and I want them to bring one of the portable nuclear devices I suspect all US ships carry nowadays. They can turn the tide in France and secure that gate before it becomes a beachhead. If we don’t act soon, it might be too late. The Chinese are not the biggest threat on the board right now.”

  This was absolutely the worst time for this kind of distraction, but Rogers was right. An alien invasion trumped conventional war. The Chinese could be dealt with. Hordes of high-tech aliens were a completely different story.

  Queen rubbed his face. “I can’t just send them in. The New Zealanders would never allow them off the ship, particularly with a nuke. Even if I could, you don’t get my help for free. Your monopoly of the alien tech is over. The Chinese ship is on its way to Mars. You have to cut America in or there is no deal.”

  He had absolutely no idea if any deal he struck—even if Rogers agreed to it—would make it past the president and Senate. Still, the bastard needed help and this was the best time to make him give up control.

  Besides, if what the man said was true, time was running out for all of them.

  “I agree in principle. Humanity Unlimited doesn’t have the forces or the knowledge to deal with the aliens. As to the latter, you need to make your peace with Brenda Cabot and her group. They know far more about the Asharim than either of us.”

  Perfect. One more enemy he had to bring to the table. Yet, now that push came to shove, he knew he had to do that, too. He couldn’t afford a world war with an enemy like that buried in his government.

  “I also agree, in principle,” he said tiredly. “I can probably get hold of her in a few hours.”

  “Would having her call you right now help?”

  He snorted bitter amusement. “I suppose that shouldn’t surprise me. Yes. Give me fifteen minutes to call the ship and give them orders. Rather, to call the Joint Chiefs and have them make that call. I’ll have to get the New Zealanders to buy in, too.”

  “Make your call. I have an assistant to New Zealand’s Prime Minister standing right here. He’s already gotten the go ahead to let your people off the ship with the weapon so long as they don’t detonate the bomb on their soil.”

  “This changes everything, Rogers,” Queen said slowly. “We’ve been acting like kids pushing each other around in the schoolyard. As much as it pains me to say, the United States is going to have to step back in time and become the leader it once was. You and your people can help or hinder us. I hope we can find the right path forward to save us all.”

  “So do I, Mister Secretary. So do I.”

  Queen disconnected the call without a word of goodbye. He had a lot of calls to make and some serious convincing to do.

  * * * * *

  Harry ordered every man and woman who could handle a weapon to move to the base in New Zealand. The only break in his nonstop planning sessions was while Brenda Cabot negotiated a ceasefire with Queen.

  He couldn’t believe they had to work with the damned stuffed shirt, but saw the logic, as much as he hated it. They just couldn’t turn back an invasion with the forces he had at hand.

  If they survived, everything was going to change. He wasn’t sure how yet, but that was inevitable. The American government was going to try to take over and he’d have to work with Jess to stop them, or at least slow them down.

  That started another round of worrying about the engineer. Rex hadn’t heard from her since the fighting had started. That meant she was hiding somewhere in the base, captured, or dead. He hoped for the best, but deep down he knew the chances of her still being a free agent were low.

  He prayed she was still alive. Losing her would be devastating both personally and professionally.

  Listening to Brenda fill Queen in on what she suspected about a separate group of people from the Asharim conflict a thousand years ago was educational and distracting, too.

  He immediately connected the Chinese conflict with that group. Brenda’s certainty that they were heavy-worlders made the likelihood of them being loyal to the Asharim—even after all this time—too great to simply dismiss.

  There might even be a possibility they had some connection to the attack in France, though he didn’t see how.

  If they were as deeply embedded in society there as Brenda claimed her people were in the US, these people were probably manipulating their government. Or they’d placed their own in charge over the intervening centuries.

  It made him wonder about the Communist takeover a century ago. Had the heavy-worlder secret society been behind that?

  If they were in control, the conflict wouldn’t end easily. These people probably thought they had a lot to gain and very little to lose.

  It also meant that the Chinese ship probably had a crew of their choosing. One that likely had some kind of Asharim tech along to even the odds. Thankfully, he had a few weeks to worry about that problem.

  Assuming he survived the next few hours, of course.

  Rex had done the best he could, but the enemy had forced him into withdrawing from the gate room. They were steadily forcing their way up and it wouldn’t be long before he had to abandon the base entirely. At least the Volunteers had finished evacuating.

  Harry couldn’t imagine what the French authorities would do once they figured out they had fighting on their territory. It probably wouldn’t be good. Yet another thing to worry about.

  They made it back to Brenda’s building a few hours after dark and raced down to the gate room. Her people had already opened a connection to the ruined New Zealand base and he stalked through it while she finished gathering those of her people that might be able to help.

  His father was talking with a vaguely familiar man in a US Navy camo uniform. They both turned to face him as soon as he stepped into the room.

  “Perfect timing,” his father said. “Commander Krueger just arrived. I believe you know one another.”

  That made the memory click in his head and Harry extended his hand to the man. “I do indeed. Good to see you again, Commander.”

  “No need to stand on ceremony. Call me Karl. I’ve been going over the basic situation with your father. It doesn’t sound good.”

  Harry looked around the room at all the people they had gathered. His people made up about a quarter of the hundred or so people in the chamber. The US forces were of a similar number. The remainder wore camouflage uniforms of an unfamiliar make.

  “It’s looking better than I expected. Where did you come up with so many people and who are they?”

  “A quarter of them are mine. Not all special forces, but they have some combat training. The rest are the best New Zealand could gather on short notice. We have enough to secure a bridgehead on the far side, so long as we can do it quickly. My team will form the point.

  “The basic plan is to open a gate and launch a heavy weapon to clear the floor on the other side. If the chamber is the same size as this one, it won’t do the job compl
etely, but it will cause enough shock and awe to get our people through.

  “Then we hold while we take the package through the gate to the hostiles’ home base. If it seems appropriately bad there, I have the green light to set the thing on a short timer and leave it while we withdraw. It’s nice that cutting off the gate means we go from having a backpack nuke in our laps to being a long way away in a few seconds.”

  Harry nodded. “Damn straight. What about our people on the other side? I don’t want to lose a single person, but I’m concerned about one in specific. Jess Cook isn’t just my partner. She has irreplaceable knowledge of everything we’re doing. We need to get her out alive if we can.”

  Krueger sighed. “We’ll do what we can, but we have to protect our forces first.”

  That wasn’t what Harry wanted to hear, but he knew it was a hard truth. This was going to be difficult no matter how they sliced it.

  “What if they’ve closed the gate down?” he asked.

  “That’s where I come in,” a young guy with a bald head and purple glasses said from nearby.

  He must’ve slipped up while they’d been talking. Since Brenda was standing beside him, Harry assumed he was one of her people.

  “How so?”

  “I can access the gates to read their most recent incoming and outgoing addresses. It’ll take a few seconds, but I’ll be able to recreate the connection. It would be useful to guess which gate up front, though. I don’t want to waste time on the wrong one.”

  “This is Kevin McHugh,” Brenda said. “He’s my best tech guy. I have some people that can fight with me, but most of my folks are techs of one kind or another. We’ll handle any issue with the Asharim technology.”

  “When will we be ready?” Harry asked.

  “We’re ready now,” Krueger said. “Give us a minute to get into final positions and we can kick this party off.”

  The fighting forces were gathered on either side of the gate. That made sense. If someone shot through it at them, they’d be out of the direct line of fire.