Robert Wilson and the Invasion from Within

by Scott Ruesterholz

  At 11:15 AM, President Victoria Larom had taken a secret flight to the secure West Virginia bunker as a safety precaution in case Washington D.C. comes under attack. Now, she sits at the head of the table in the Situation Room in the bunker. On her screen, she is watching the live feed from PEACE, alongside her military and security advisors. At the moment, there is little to do but watch, though the generals are in constant contact with commanders stationed in each of the major cities. A sense of shock hit the room when the alien ships arrived, and while she did not expect it, she is a bit less surprised, having felt that Robert has been keeping some elements of his plans secret, perhaps from everyone.

  Aboard his ship, Tiberius is frantically barking orders. Looking out from the conn, he sees thousands of ships battling it out. Thus far, the fighting is almost exclusively occurring in the thousand-mile stretch between the force field and the six transport destroyers, which have yet to get directly involved in the struggle. They could use their large laser cannons, but given the magnitude of the blast, they would eradicate thousands of their own ships too. Tiberius has sent out virtually all of the small and drone crafts that the transport destroyers carry.

  “What are our losses?” he shouts.

  “Six percent of our manned crafts and nine percent of our drone crafts are now unresponsive, sir.”

  “And theirs?”

  “Three percent of Earth crafts and two percent of unidentified crafts.”

  Tiberius is relieved. He believes he has two to three times as many ships, so at this loss rate, it will be a brutal battle but one in which he should be triumphant. That said, the first two minutes were supposed to be the most dangerous for Earth’s forces, and instead, they have exited it mostly unscathed. Both sides have reasons for optimism.

  Just as Tiberius is feeling relieved, a junior officer from the radar division shouts, “Two large ships have just entered the battlefield. They are larger than a transport destroyer, sir!”

  “Get me a visual!” Tiberius demands. His ship pivots and from the great window of his conn, he sees the two dark blue rebel carriers.

  One of these ships hovers about 40,000 miles away from the battlefield, similar to Magnus. The other steams towards the transport destroyer guarding the moon.

  “Let it engage,” Tiberius says. “I want to understand what it is capable of.”

  The rebel carrier moves in within hundreds of miles of the transport destroyer guarding the moon. The two ships fire laser cannons upon each other as they pass by, with the blows seemingly absorbed by their shield systems. As the ships turn to face each other again, several hundred small crafts exit through the great bay doors of the carrier while the large laser cannon extends from the red semi-sphere of the destroyer. The drone ships swarm the sphere area, firing laser shots. A great explosion occurs, sending shockwaves all the way through the battlefield as the red semi-sphere explodes from the onslaught of attack, seeming to cripple the entire ship.

  The rebel carrier makes another passing at the now limp transport destroyer, firing all of its cannons across the hull of the destroyer as they pass, causing a series of fatal explosions. The carrier turns and heads toward the primary battlefield in the ring around Earth, tailed by several hundred surviving small crafts.

  Robert is watching from the command center, his two friends by his side, as the first transport destroyer is eliminated. Sensing the opportunity, he says to Thornhill, “Send out the lunar forces.”

  Within moments, the lunar contingent, over 500 of the most experienced PEACE pilots are in the fight, hot on the heels of the rebel carrier group. Soon, they are in the action in the Asian sector.

  It is now 2:06 PM in New York. Fighting has been going on for nearly forty minutes. 2,500 SF-01s have been lost in the battle, but they appear to be inflicting a heavy toll on the League of Planets’s forces. There is, however, a clear difference in losses by sector. The battle is going much better over Asia. Thanks to the presence of the rebel carrier and the lunar forces coming from behind the front line, they have encircled much of the League’s forces with tens of thousands of small crafts and two transport destroyers surrounded by SF-01s on their Earth side and resistance ships to their spaceward side. In the last five minutes, they have been destroying at least ten ships for every ship they’ve lost, and some squadrons are even making bombing runs on the transport destroyers themselves.

  The American quadrant is proving to be more difficult. Here, there is no help from the spaceward side of the lines, and the SF-01s and rebel ships are fighting with the force fields to their back unable to break through the enemy line 1,000 miles above. They are losing nearly one ship for every one that they destroy—an unsustainable loss rate given the difference in force size.

  Thornhill turns to Robert. “We need to relieve pressure over the U.S.”

  “Agreed. Send the three closest squadrons inside the force field, and let’s see how the military handles it.”

  Thornhill passes on the order. Robert hits the red button on the black remote, shutting the Jersey City tower down. Seventy-two SF-01s dip inside the force field. As the ensuing drones follow them down, they turn up above the force field line. Robert clicks the remote, turning the tower back on. Seven enemy spacecrafts are destroyed as they ram into the force field on their attempted exit. He then hands the remote to Chris and Mark. “I trust you more than anyone else to operate this judiciously,” he says, before leaving the room. That leaves forty-seven enemy ships inside the shield. They begin a descent down toward New York City.

  Fighter jets begin taking off from the aircraft carrier patrolling the New York harbor. Jets are also scrambled from nearby bases in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The U.S. Air Force will be the first national military to interact with the alien craft, and they are motivated to prove their mettle.

  About five miles above the Manhattan skyline, fighter jets begin firing upon and tailing the alien crafts. However, they struggle to keep pace, and the cloaking technology on the League’s ships makes accurate firing extremely difficult. Only eight crafts are destroyed at the cost of fifteen fighter jets as they near the one mile above sea level mark.

  Anti-aircraft missiles are fired from the ground forces and from the Naval ships to slow the advance. About seventy rounds are fired, and there are thirty hits. Meanwhile, the pursuing fighter jets are able to hit another three while suffering six more losses.

  Now just 3,000 feet above Manhattan, six alien crafts are left. They begin firing upon the naval forces, critically wounding two cruisers, while the carrier group desperately continues to fire.

  Suddenly, from the west, there are laser shots fired, hitting each of the six remaining enemy crafts. There, next to the Jersey City headquarters, Robert’s black spherical ship is hovering, having fired some of its emergency ammunition for the journey from Planet Killjorn back in 2014. New York City has been spared, but the cost was steep. It would appear that thirty to fifty enemy crafts will be the most that major cities will be able to handle, far less than hoped to be an effective safety valve.

  Robert radios in to Thornhill: “How are we doing, Jake?”

  “Asian Front remains strong, but our losses in the Americas are steep, and I’m hesitant to send many more through the force field.”

  “Okay, can we divert resources from the Asian fleet?”

  While Robert is talking to the command center, the second rebel carrier opens its bay doors, releasing several thousand drone crafts, which head full speed toward the American front. They immediately begin firing upon the morass of SF-01 and League plans, levelling a heavy toll as—like in Asia—they try to encircle the League’s planes.

  Tiberius’s ship is directly above the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, so he has a direct view of what the rebel forces are trying to do. Being encircled here would be a catastrophic blow to the war effort.

  “Extend the laser cannon,” he orders. />
  “But sir, we have many ships and men down there.”

  “I know, but we’ll take out more of theirs. And the loss ratio will be inside our tolerance band,” Tiberius callously responds. He realizes this is a battle of attrition, and the numbers are on his side. He will be ready to strike within two minutes.

  In the Jersey City command center, staff rush to Thornhill to show him the extension of the laser cannon. If they do nothing, they will suffer a crippling loss of ships on this front. Even if they win over Asia, the residual strength may not be enough to deal with the remnant League forces. But if they open the force field to escape from the blast, they risk letting in thousands of enemy ships.

  He turns to Mark and Chris who have the remote to the force field. “Robert delegated to you. What do you decide?”

  Just then a voice booms over the secure communications feed, “Open the force field. We will help protect you.”

  “Where’d that come from?” Thornhill demands.

  “I don’t know,” someone from the communications team shouts, “but it originated from the South Atlantic, not space.”

  Thornhill tells Mark and Chris, “The sharks in the South Atlantic are why Robert picked today to fight.”

  “Then let’s open it now,” Chris says as Mark nods in agreement. Together, they open the London, Bogota, Sao Paulo, Jersey City, South Atlantic, and Los Angeles force fields while Thornhill orders a full-scale retreat inside the force field. The SF-01s will then fly into the Asian quadrant to see if they can deliver a knockout blow to the League’s forces there.

  Suddenly as the force fields open and the retreat begins, an aide yells, “Put the South Atlantic on the screen.”

  The water about 500 yards past the Arbor Ridge research facility has grown tempestuous, bubbling white hot. The sharks that had been circling the facility have disappeared in the past few minutes. From the raging waters, a ship begins to rise. It has the same navy-blue and submarine-like shape of the carriers that arrived just two hours ago. It is covered in sea moss and coral, betraying an existence on Earth’s seabed that must be in excess of fifty if not one hundred years. This ancient ship rumbles northward.

  16,000 SF-01s were sent from the force field zones that Mark and Chris opened. Just 8,000 returned alongside 5,500 drone-operated rebel forces. Behind them, 15,000 enemy ships have entered the force field. Mark and Chris closed the force field mere moments before Tiberius was able to fire off a large laser cannon shot, which was absorbed easily by the force field. The 8,000 SF-01s head toward Moscow or Bangkok with each location where half of the fleet will re-enter space to complete the fighting on the eastern front. 3,500 of the rebel fleet stay behind to engage with the earthbound enemy forces while 2,000 follow the SF-01s.

  The militaries of the United States, Europe, South America, and Africa have begun to deploy in anticipation of the arrival of thousands of enemy crafts. However about four minutes after the force field closes, the alien craft that had been hiding under Earth’s oceans for decades arrives next to Manhattan. News networks around the world cut to live shots of Manhattan. There has been no reporting to the fact that friendly alien forces have arrived, so as far as the audience knows, this is an enemy ship. However, no U.S. military personnel engage.

  Rather than aim at the city, the ship begins firing massive laser blasts up into the sky. The sound of the blast can be felt inside the PEACE command center, 150 feet underground in Jersey City. To those in New York City, it must sound and feel as though they are being attacked, not being saved from attack.

  The laser blasts, one after another for ten minutes, eradicate the approaching enemy ships, all 16,000 of them, who were being contained by the residual force of 3,500. All of these ships were also destroyed. In effect, this rebel ally sacrificed all of their unmanned ships to help save Earth. This mission complete, the carrier begins its launch skyward to take part in the battle.

  Tiberius stands at the conn, dumbfounded by the utter devastation of his earthbound fleet.

  “Where did that ship come from? How did our surveillance not detect it for the past two months?”

  “Sir,” the senior officer on the surveillance team sheepishly says, “it appears to have arisen from the sea floor. Our surveillance scans focused on land masses and near shorelines due to your orders.”

  Tiberius is aghast at this detail. The persistent rumors of the past twenty years must be true. His mind briefly flashes back to the battle for Aquine that led to his promotion to Vice Admiral and made him Frozos’s top military advisor—the siege of an aquatic planet. That battle made his career, and he is determined not to let this one unmake him.

  He has lost nearly 60 percent of his small crafts now, compared to about 20 percent of the combined Earth-rebel fleet. More troublingly, he has lost three of his transport destroyers, one over the moon and two over the Asian front. He is watching footage of the final minutes before the second Asian transport destroyer was destroyed. The Earth and rebel forces have formed a symbiotic relationship. Earth’s ships are faster and more agile while the rebel fleet has larger, more powerful artillery and bombing capacity. As a consequence, the SF-01s lead the runs, back and forth over the transport destroyers, clearing the path for the rebel fleet to drop their loads, gradually breaking through the shield and leaving the ship dead in space, a giant helpless target. Their burning carcasses have lit the night sky over Asia.

  “Send the remaining four transport destroyers to the Asian front. That is where this battle will end,” Tiberius orders. The rumble of his craft’s engine vibrates the conn as his ship begins to move towards the heart of the battle.

  The League’s forces have been decimated in Asia, because they have been pigeonholed, surrounded by the small crafts on the Earth side and the carrier and rebel forces on the space side. The second rebel carrier has already begun to move and join the first on the space side of the conflict to firm up the front line. Now, Tiberius plans to reset the rules of engagement.

  He will be positioning the four transport destroyers to the boundary of the conflict. By surrounding the forces surrounding his fleet, he can entrap them and relieve pressure on his beleaguered pilots. This will hopefully be the final blow and put an end, finally, to this exasperating siege.

  Thornhill notices in the images of New York City that Robert’s spherical spacecraft is no longer hovering next to the Jersey City tower. “Where did Robert’s ship go?” he asks.

  There is a scramble on the radar team before someone says, “When Mark and Chris opened the force field to let our fleet back in, one ship left.”

  Another chimes in, “Our satellites are picking up a black spherical alien ship headed towards Frozos’s ship. Frozos’s ship is now advancing toward the Asian front.”

  Desperate, Thornhill radios, “Robert, are you in space? Get back. We need you here more…Robert?!”

  After a pause that could be counted in seconds but felt like hours, Robert responds, “You’re in good hands. I’m doing what needs to be done. Over and out.”

  Standing at the helm of his ship, Supreme General Frozos has a direct view of the fighting occurring over Asia. The battlefield stretches for several thousand miles. Small crafts are flying everywhere, bounded by the four remaining transport destroyers and the three rebel carriers, which are engaging each other in conflict. It is now 5:30 PM in New York; the fighting having gone on for over four hours. Each side has been weakened heavily.

  Just now, there are twin giant explosions, from a rebel carrier and transport destroyer. They had been parrying laser shots for the past thirty minutes, with shield strength reaching critical depths. Their final volley at each other proves to be their last. With only three remaining functioning transport destroyers, the ability to contain Earth’s forces inside the Asian zone would be severely diminished.

  Frozos now realizes this battle of attrition will be merely a question of who is the last
man standing. He barks to the weapons crew, “Prepare the planetary cannon.”

  “But sir, Admiral Tiberius is there.”

  “I am aware.”

  Magnus is equipped with the most powerful arsenal of laser cannons in the entire League of Planets. With one shot, he can eradicate a planet triple the size of Jupiter. Magnus will move into range of the battlefield and eradicate every single ship, in his fleet, Earth’s, and the rebel forces. He will leave Earth weakened, but at least he will be taking out the meddlesome resistance fighters in the process.

  Frozos sits down in his chair at the conn, waiting for the cannons to charge up.

  “Sir, we are getting warnings that someone is in your personal chambers. Shall we send security?” A communications officer shouts to him.

  “No. I will go.”

  Frozos walks out of the conn and into his private office, a Spartan room, more befitting a field general than the leader of the universe’s largest empire. When he arrives, he’s surprised to see Robert Wilson sitting in his chair.

  Chapter 28

  Magnus

  June 13, 2029

  Frozos closes the door behind him, warily. Robert has a laser pistol in his hand, pointed right at Frozos, who is unarmed.

  “How did you get aboard?”

  “Did you forget? I was valedictorian on Killjorn. One of the perks was flying to Earth in an officer-level sphere. I’ve kept the ship, and so as I approached your ship in it, I was welcomed aboard. Go ahead. Call below and ask if a black spherical ship is in your landing bay.” Robert gestures with the pistol to the phone on top of his desk.