Battle for the Earth

by John P. Gledhill

  ‘They’re heading for Mars. The other battle cruiser and transports went there as well,’ Tannacha growled

  As the pair watched the formation travelling through space, they failed to notice the low-level, very faint ground movement of Finney and Sacha.

  **

  As the flotilla of ESG craft disappeared behind Mars, Tannacha now knew they were either using Mars or just hiding behind it. They’ll keep, he thought. He could now turn back to his pet project, the reason he had rushed back to Dulles when it had come under threat.

  Nalater didn’t have a clue what Tannacha was up to, but he would have given his right arm to find out. It must be a hell of an important project to warrant all this attention and secrecy, he thought.

  The Dulles base was a hive of activity, Nalater wasn’t entirely sure about everything that was going on there. His own project was the strengthening of the defences around the base, which was going well. Indeed, the base was now almost impregnable. He didn’t know why Tannacha had insisted on such extreme security, but he did surmise that it must be linked to Tannacha’s secret project.

  Nalater was in the complex of buildings within the Dulles base checking the final adjustments to his new perimeter security when, as if right on cue, the outer perimeter’s automated pulse cannons burst into life. Nalater accessed the view screens to see what was going on.

  A small party of humans not wearing the usual uniform of the ESG had breached the security of the outer perimeter and triggered the automated cascade of pulse fire which cut them down more or less instantaneously.

  Nalater smiled. The results of his endeavours had been excellent. However, it was unusual to see civilians in combat, and he couldn’t help feeling he was missing something here. He turned it over in his head for a few moments, then decided he’d better go and take a look.

  As he approached the bodies of the humans, he switched off the defence system. The bodies were mutilated but it was clear to see they weren’t ESG troopers. They were, however, armed to the teeth. Nalater pondered this for a moment and came to the natural conclusion that they must be some kind of armed civilian resistance. The ESG must be desperate using untrained soldiers, but he convinced himself that this was no threat whatsoever to the security of the Annunaki.

  Mark Howden, the resistance leader in the Dulles area, had been observing the destruction of the resistance fighters as they probed the security around Dulles. It was obvious that the security had been stepped up, and was now quite lethal.

  He watched Nalater picking over the bodies of the resistance fighters, and wondered who this lone Annunaki was and what he was doing. The thought of capturing the Annunaki did occur to him, but he was now only too well aware of the destructive force of the perimeter defences.

  Any such possibility was quickly removed when Nalater returned to the shelter of the inner buildings of the Dulles base, rearming the perimeter defences as he went.

  **

  Mark had decided an all-out attack on the base would be suicidal. However, watching the lone Annunaki had given him an idea, a way to harass the Annunaki, in an old World War Two style. He would place two dozen of his best snipers around the outskirts of the base armed with high-powered sniper rifles. These snipers would take out high-value targets of opportunity. This would have to do until a solution to the perimeter defences could be found, he decided.

  Nalater had returned to the bridge on board the Serpitus. Apart from strengthening the base at Dulles, the Annunaki forces seemed to be doing nothing and Nalater was getting restless. It was almost as if Tannacha was waiting for something to happen, and it wasn’t to be long before Nalater found out what.

  Mark’s snipers were having limited success, taking pot shots at whatever were thought to be high-ranking Annunaki warriors.

  The trouble was they were so difficult to kill, A shot to the body at times would have virtually no effect against the tough Annunaki hide. Even a head shot wasn’t guaranteed a kill. All the same it was harassment, which was better than no action at all.

  **

  Tannacha had decided at last to let Nalater into one of his secrets.

  The pair entered a building right in the centre of the Dulles complex and, as they descended a flight of dark dingy stairs towards large double doors, Nalater thought to himself: this place stinks. For an Annunaki to notice a smell, it would have to be really bad.

  Tannacha threw the double doors wide open, revealing a huge, well-lit medical lab; they entered and he closed the doors behind them. Nalater noticed the look on Tannacha’s face: it almost shone with pride. He was obviously delighted with himself.

  As Nalater scanned the room looking for some clue as to what was going on, Tannacha pointed him in the direction of a piece of medical equipment, shaped like a large coffin. It stood on its end, and was metallic in colour, probably an alloy. It stood around twelve feet in height and was at its widest point about five feet. There were all manner of pipes and wires protruding from it, along with a complete digital console attached to the wall next to it.

  Nalater couldn’t deny that he was intrigued by Tannacha’s project so far. It looked very interesting.

  Tannacha flicked a switch at the side of the coffin-shaped object and the front opened slowly outwards revealing what could only be described as a very large human shape which filled the entire space inside the coffin and was dressed in a silver alloy suit.

  The face of the being was covered by an expressionless mask in the rough shape of a face and in the same material as the suit. As Nalater studied the suit more closely he could see it was completely covered by a series of very fine black wires almost like hairs.

  Tannacha had already moved to a larger room and waved Nalater over.

  This room looked more like a production complex. There was a series of shiny tables, about ten in all. They were arranged in what looked like a production line. Each table had a body on it, apparently at a different stage of the production process.

  Nalater approached the first of the tables, which had a body resting on it. It was almost recognisable as human. One of Tannacha’s scientists was leaning over the head of the obviously sedated human, and introducing what looked like a very small silver scorpion into its ear.

  Nalater could now see why Tannacha was so keen to get back to this base when it came under attack. He still didn’t know exactly what was going on but at least now he could have a good guess.

  The scorpion had now disappeared completely, and even under sedation you could see the anguish on the face of the unfortunate human. All of a sudden its eyes dilated completely and its fists were clenched. Nalater assumed correctly that it was some kind of mind-control device.

  The next table was even more interesting. The naked human on this table had pipes, tubes and electrodes sticking out from all over it. Glancing at it casually, you could mistake it for a hardened body builder who had been on steroids for years. This unfortunate obviously didn’t need to be sedated and was under the full control of the scientist attending it. The next two tables were more or less the same, but showed different stages of the process.

  The fifth table was completely different. Here the scientist was introducing some kind of organic exoskeleton that appeared to bind itself to the body’s endoskeleton, forming some type of organic armour. Again this process occupied two tables and seemed to take rather longer than the previous stages.

  Nalater was so far as impressed as an Annunaki could be. He had never in his wildest dreams expected anything like this.

  What was on the seventh table was barely recognisable as human. It was nearly twice the size of an average man, obviously the result of the specialist growth hormones and steroid combinations. The other thing that added to the bulk was the now fully developed exoskeleton. This monster now dwarfed the Annunaki scientist working on it. Nalater wasn’t quite sure what the scientist was doing to the monstrosity, and to be honest he didn’t want to know. Tannacha was a ruthless, even bar
baric, son of a bitch, but even he had outdone himself with this butchery.

  Table eight was not only a table but also incorporated a pit, which was filled with a silver fluid, with an overhead lifting device attached to it, obviously to be used for dipping the monsters. On the table lay one such freshly dipped creature. How does it breathe, thought Nalater? On closer inspection porous areas could be seen at strategic points all round the torso.

  The job of table seven was becoming more clear. The creature on it no longer breathed through its mouth, but had twelve gill-like structures around the torso. Increased oxygen intake, thought Nalater. Clever.

  Around where the navel would have been were a series of small connectors, again obviously for nourishment and waste. The whole respiratory and digestive processes had been totally changed at the previous work station. What was even more interesting, the silver fluid had set all the way around the body and exoskeleton, turning into a fully armoured yet extremely pliable second skin.

  Table nine had four Annunaki scientists around it, who were applying by hand a fine layer of the black hair-like substance all over the torso and appendages of the body, Nalater didn’t have a clue what this was. He had never seen anything like it before.

  Just as he reached table ten, Tannacha joined him.

  Table ten was clearly for quality control. Two of the Annunaki scientists were scrutinising the finished product that lay there. The finishing touch after quality control was the fitting of the grotesque mask.

  They returned to the coffin-like structure in the other room, which was now empty and awaiting its next victim.

  Nalater assumed it was probably the last stage to the mind-control process, maybe also a nutrition and waste station.

  **

  Tannacha had not said a word as Nalater wandered around, feeding his curiosity.

  Now he spoke

  ‘Well, what do you think?’

  ‘Impressive, very impressive. I wondered what you had been doing.’

  ‘I’ve had a change of heart with the humans.’

  Nalater looked at him.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I mean I don’t want to kill them any more. Well, at least not all of them.’

  Nalater couldn’t believe his ears. Tannacha surely hadn’t just said that.

  ‘What are you going to do with them, then?’

  Tannacha scowled and gestured in the direction of the coffin. He thought to himself: Nalater can be really stupid at times. I just wish he’d think more like me.

  Finally the penny dropped and Nalater spluttered:

  ‘You mean you’re going to turn six billion people into robots?’

  ‘Not all of them, and not robots. Sybotes. Good name, though isn’t it? Sounds like someone’s name. Anyway only one in a hundred of them makes it all the way through the process.’

  ‘Let me get this straight, you’re going to create sixty million Sybotes?’

  ‘Not that many. Just some of them, after we’ve colonised Earth. Our very own, totally obedient slave force.’

  ‘Colonise Earth? I thought we just came for the gold, and to kill humans.’

  ‘Change of plan, my friend. You need to keep up with the times.’

  Nalater pulled himself up. The shock of it all had made him forget who he was talking to. He was now in danger of having his head removed from his shoulders.

  ‘Excellent plan, commander. I don’t know how you do it.’

  ‘It’s a gift, Nalater, a gift. Now we need to get things organised.’

  ‘How do you mean, commander?’

  ‘Let’s see if the Sybotes work.’

  With that, Tannacha moved to the other side of the room. He threw open the door to reveal at least twenty-five working Sybotes standing to attention in the large dusky cellar.

  **

  38

  On the Mars base everything was going swimmingly. A routine had been established with the civilians and the staff now running the base, including the Androids who were going down particularly well.

  Konoco and Marie had watched the Iron Duke and the rest of the flotilla leave Heathrow and had returned to the surface of Mars to greet the new arrivals. Watching the shuttles ferrying people down from the Iron Duke, Marie felt a sense of pride at being part of all this. The survival of mankind and I’m helping to achieve it! The thought was overwhelming.

  Suddenly Konoco moved away. He had spotted Jumouk and began heading in his direction. Because of the lack of communication there was a lot of catching up to do.

  When Lee and Grant had woken up, the six of them -Lee, Grant, Konoco, Jumouk, Marie and Fiona - met up in one of the large conference rooms.

  Jumouk welcomed everybody, thanked them for coming, and announced that the first thing on the agenda was the redistribution of responsibilities.

  Jumouk was to retain overall leadership, with Konoco his second in command.

  Lee would stay as head of ESG, and Grant was made officially head of assault craft squadrons. Marie was now in charge of the Mars base, with Fiona second in command. Pausanias was head of the humanoid Androids on the Mars base.

  Finney was promoted to second in command of Earth ESG, reporting to Lee, and in charge of liaison with the resistance. Sacha was directly responsible for Earth resistance and coordination. Mark Howden was made second in charge of the Earth resistance. Thourus remained as first in command of the Android TAG, and ACM forces, with Balac as his second in command.

  It had taken a long time to sort out, but eventually everybody’s responsibilities had been made clear. Jumouk was satisfied that the mechanics of leadership were now properly in place. The next priority was to establish a new battle plan.

  **

  The Mars base was proving to be a godsend for humanity. It was now providing shelter for up to one and a half million people. Even with the worst-possible scenario, this was still enough of a gene pool to start humanity again.

  The rest of the population on Earth, however, was still constantly in danger of discovery, even though they were in the camouflaged bases. The Annunaki had already shown how determined they could be at worming out the Earth bases. A plan of action was desperately needed to prevent any more of them being discovered.

  Jumouk left this job in Lee’s hands. After all, he had already shown a great aptitude for making the impossible happen. Finney would be responsible for coordinating the harassment of the Annunaki ground patrols, especially around the bases, to distract search-and-destroy patrols. Grant’s main job would now be the defence of Mars with his squadrons of ESG assault ships along with the two battle cruisers, Iron Duke and Victory. Thourus and Balac would provide air cover for the remaining ESG forces on Earth, coordinating with Finney and the Earth resistance leaders.

  Slowly but surely a strategy and structure were coming together; Jumouk was anxious to leave the fighting to others, run the overall strategy, and return to a structured battle plan.

  He called an end to the meeting and asked if everybody could report back to Lee as developments progressed. Lee and Jumouk could then make decisions based on the available information, so as to best utilise the forces available to them.

  **

  Marie and Fiona were getting down to serious business, having Pausanias explain all the workings of the Mars base. This was going to be a lengthy task, so Marie was going to have to prioritise: defensive and offensive weapons first, then proximity detection, followed by life support and logistics. Fiona could then take over the more routine aspects of administration.

  Marie was fascinated by the proximity detectors. They were far superior to the ones on the battle cruisers, being more accurate and having a much longer range. As she watched the Dulles base she could see almost every movement there. Somehow, whoever had built this base had managed to conquer the line-of-sight problem. It didn’t matter what you wanted to see, it was there irrespective of the position of Earth or Mars, or for that matter any other pla
net. It was so clever!

  Pausanias now described the defence systems. Apparently they were scattered all around Mars in generous quantities. Even if a fleet of battle cruisers attacked, the defences would be able to cope. Someone had been expecting trouble, Marie thought to herself.

  The long-range offensive weapons were excellent as well. Several banks of them were located within the base and the rest around the planet surface, each bank able to track different targets.