Invasion: The complete three book set

by J. F. Holmes

  Sweeping south, he came across the SeaTac airport, and watched a C-130 descending onto one of the runways. Delivering needed supplies and technology from one of the stockpiles, he hoped. Following it in, it finally disappeared behind a cluster of buildings. Scattered about the runway were the remains of armored vehicles, both human and Invy, including some M1 tanks looking like tiny dots in the distance, some still showing wisps of smoke. That must have been a rough fight, and as a former light infantry Ranger, not one he’d have wanted to be in. Overhead in the clear blue sky, he could barely see a pair of fighter planes, far up, circling on patrol.

  Then he turned his eyes to the thing he’d been avoiding. Seattle was the city he’d been born and raised in; he still had a Seahawks cap hanging in the house. To see it now…

  The Space Needle was gone, the rim of it just sticking up from the ground. The tower itself had been snapped off halfway up. To the east, the just completed Northwest Empire building, all two hundred stories of it, had been a targeting reference for the orbital strikes. The first had blown it apart, and then walked their way east to the bridges over Lake Washington. It was as if the aliens had decided to just destroy the humans’ infrastructure and let their civilization destroy itself. He knew it was like that around the country, bridges and rail lines destroyed, as well as communications and transport.

  His heart ached because he knew his city would never again achieve the beauty it had once known, at least not in his lifetime, maybe not even in Alex’s, if they even tried again. One thing they’d never mentioned in all the science fiction novels he’d read, all the movies he’d devoured as a kid, was what came after. After the good guys had inevitably won. No one had ever talked about the mess of dealing with wholesale destruction. Even after the pounding of Germany in World War Two, the US had been there to help pick up the pieces. Who would help them now? Then again, maybe it would be a better place. The country had been about to tear itself apart when the Invy came; thank God Alex would never know what ‘social media’ was.

  Lost in thought, he didn’t hear the slow, plodding hoofbeats coming up the road until they were almost upon him. Wheeling the horse around, he brought up the carbine to point it at another rider, who also raised his rifle. The man wore a pair of abused, but clean, tanker’s coveralls, and had corporal’s stripes sewn on his sleeve.

  “Staff Sergeant Erik Blake, CEF Special Operations. Who are you?”

  The man lowered his weapon and said, “Corporal Jamie Ibson, late of the CEF. Now headed home.” There was a heavy Canadian accent in Ibson’s voice; Blake guessed he was from Vancouver, or even further east and north.

  “Not deserting, I hope,” said Blake, not lowering his rifle. He didn’t think so; the man didn’t have that look. Instead, he had the stare of someone who had seen too much, too quickly.

  Ibson laughed, a hollow sound, and said, “No, haven’t you heard? The Provisional Canadian Government has called all governmental employees home.”

  Blake lowered the rifle and said, “What?” slightly dumbfounded.

  “Oh yeah. I’m a Mountie in my day job. Gotta go.”

  The American gestured at the horizon and said, “Uh, what about all this?”

  “What about it? You and me, we’re just small players in the grand scheme of things, and I’ve had my fill of fighting.”

  Noting the tanker coverall, Blake said, “Were you involved in all that?” meaning the tank battle.

  “A little bit. Like I said, small players. I’d rather be catching bad guys. What about you? What will you do?”

  “I don’t know, honestly. I’m not even sure who I am anymore. Been a soldier my whole life, but if it’s over, what then?”

  Ibson nodded but said, “I don’t think it’s over, not by a long shot, but soldiering is a young man’s game.” The man edged his horse up next to Blake’s, and the two sat and stared out over the ruins.

  “It’s never going to be the same, is it?” Blake finally said.

  Ibson shrugged, and said, “Maybe it’ll be better, you know? Well, I’ll be going,” he finished, nodded, and rode off down the highway in the opposite direction Blake was travelling.

  The sergeant turned back to watch the sun setting over the bay. As twilight settled, though he couldn’t really hear them because of the distance, he occasionally saw tracer fire from what he assumed were Army patrols in the ruined city. There were brief flares of plasma fire, too, so that threat wasn’t over.

  When the darkness had finally dropped over a ruined America, he turned the horse south again and descended further toward Tacoma. He was tired and just wanted to get home, but he still had at least two days’ ride. Camping for the night was an option, but the closer he got to home, the more sleep eluded him.

  Instead, pushing the horse, he rode for a set of lights on the horizon, bright, electric ones that hurt his eyes after all these years of lantern light. It was a CEF Main Force camp, hastily constructed out of barbed wire and Hesco barriers filled with dirt, surrounding an old school building. He rode up to within a hundred meters, conscious that there were eyes on him, climbed down off the horse, and led it forward.

  Blake heard the rattling of the bolt as a round was fed into a machine gun chamber and cringed at the lack of oil on it. Have fun firing more than a few rounds with that, he thought. “Advance and be recognized!” called the guard.

  “Staff Sergeant Erik Blake, Operational Detachment 352, on assignment,” called back Blake, wearily. The wire was pulled aside, and he was let in, though the baby-faced corporal and the PFC kept their ancient M-4s generally in his direction. He didn’t blame them; though he wore a CEF uniform, his face had a week’s growth of beard, and he was dirty and tired.

  “We need some proof before we let you go further,” said the corporal. “Gotta be sure, still some Greenies running around. We got hit last night.”

  He sighed and pulled out a holographic ID card, something he’d kept in his basement. It showed a much younger, much bolder Erik Blake. The soldiers took more than a minute to admit that yes, it was him. He waited patiently, knowing that a Wolverine could have literally eaten these two for breakfast. “What can we do for you?” they finally asked. Having decided he actually was one of the legendary Special Operations soldiers, their tone changed almost to hero worship.

  “Hot water, a cot, something other than a twenty-year-old MRE, and a ride on the next truck heading south. And maybe a fresh uniform, or at least a place to wash this one and ring it out.”

  The next afternoon, he was on the back of an LMTV, surrounded by pallets of supplies, in a three-vehicle convoy. He made no attempt to talk to anyone, just sat and stared out the back as they bounced over potholes. The three logistics soldiers riding along left him alone; it was their first trip outside Cascadia base in more than a decade, and they were soaking in the sunlight and the sights. Passing by the exit for his town off I-5, they barely stopped to let him off, but he gave a grateful wave of thanks and started walking the half mile.

  The town seemed deserted, and a smell of smoke from the fires still seemed to hang in the air. The first people he came to were two militia members guarding the entrance to the town, boys he knew well. Asking if they’d seen his son, both shook their heads. “Nope, you’re the first person to come back here since, well, since after the battle. We ain’t seen none of your buddies, neither. Just yesterday, though, a CEF officer came and was talking to Captain Ellison. Rumor has it things aren’t going too good in Portland, and we might have to move out to reinforce the attack.”

  “How’s things in town?” he asked, not caring about the war anymore. For now.

  “Pretty boring, actually.” The old soldier story, hurry up and wait.

  He thanked them and made his way back to his house, greeting his neighbors, but politely telling them he was tired and needed to rest when they wanted to talk. He had pinned all his hopes on Alex being here when he got back, though he knew that probably wasn’t going to happen. He just wanted to know, one
way or another.

  He was downstairs in the basement the next day, organizing canned food against the coming winter, when he heard the front door open. “ALEX?” he called, and rushed up the stairs. The teen stood in the hallway, leaning against the wall, crying silently, a bandage over his cheek, and looking a thousand years older. Erik Blake took his son in his arms, no longer a boy but not yet a man, and cried with him, with joy at his safe return.

  “Dad,” his son finally said, “it wasn’t like what I thought it would be. The fighting.”

  “It never is, Alex,” said his father, “it never is.”

  “Do the dreams ever go away?”

  Erik Blake closed his eyes for a moment, then lied to his son for the first time ever. “Yes, they do. Eventually.”

  “It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived.”

  ~ George S. Patton Jr.

  Ragnarök

  Wallops Island Flight Facility, Eastern Virginia, Day five of the War

  Chapter 109

  “So, let me get this straight. You want to send an untrained force to take control of a defended base in a low-gravity, airless environment. With an alerted enemy. There are no internal schematics of this base, none of us are trained for this kind of operation, and few of us have worked together before,” finished Colonel Singh with an exasperated sigh.

  “Well, there is air there. In fact, sea level pressure, if not a bit more,” replied General Warren. He sat with the rest of the top brass of the CEF staff deep in Raven Rock’s subbasements, the concept of Operation Selene laid out on the projector in the front of the room.

  “I can think of a few people who are going to have an issue with it,” she shot back. Worry showed on her face, worry and stress from a week of high-intensity fighting. The CEF Scout Regiment had taken very heavy losses; she doubted they could field more than a dozen full teams, and those were scattered around the world. They had started the week with two hundred men and women, split into twenty teams. Many, on deep cover missions, had been out of touch with the HQ for months, only reporting in after the orbitals were down. Three teams had gone silent; she assumed they were lost completely. She knew of five others who had been wiped out, and all had taken casualties.

  The man who looked back at her had changed dramatically since she’d first seen him months ago. He still had that haunted stare, but he seemed far more confident in his actions. After all, hadn’t they just kicked the crap out of the Invy?

  “I can ask them to do it, that’s all,” she said, “I won’t take anyone who doesn’t volunteer.”

  “I’ll give them a direct order,” replied Warren.

  She snorted and said, “Or what? You’ll have them shot? The people who have been putting their asses on the line for eleven years while you cowered on a farm? With all due respect, General, you may have been a boy genius, but you don’t know shit about people.”

  Lieutenant General Dalpe painfully raised his hand to interject himself between the two. Bandages covered his neck and shoulder under his uniform; the general had personally taken command of the seizing of Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia two days ago. The railgun launch assist had just been completed at the old NASA facility when the Invy arrived, making it useless. Stretching three miles along the coast to boost payloads into orbit, and mothballed at the time of the war, the Invy had occupied the launch facility and used it for experiments. The CEF had captured a relatively intact heavy cargo lifter, and techs were crawling over it like ants, trying to get it air worthy.

  “Hal,” he asked the AI, “can you fill us in on the reason we’re going to do this? It’s a hell of a lot of resources.”

  “Of course, General. It’s existential, really. The main module for the Invy AI is located at Schickard base, as are their gate controls. We need to take the Invy AI alive, for study, and gain control of the Gate or destroy it.”

  Colonel Singh’s brows knitted in consternation, and she said, “Why not just destroy the entire thing? Have the Lexington just do an orbital bombardment? What’s the point of having the high ground if we don’t use it?”

  “Because, Rachel, of we can gain control of their Gate, we gain the stars,” said Warren.

  “You think pretty big, General,” said Dalpe.

  Warren grimaced and said, “Bob, we can kick them all off Earth, and even out of the solar system, and it won’t matter, because when they come back, and they will, we’re done if we can’t meet them on our own terms.”

  “Yeah, well, one thing at a time. Let’s figure out this raid. Rachel,” said Dalpe, “you’re in charge of planning the op. You’ll have access to any assets you need, whatever the CEF can give you.”

  She thought for a minute, then looked at Warren. “This is my plan, correct?”

  He nodded. “I’m strategy, you’re tactical. This is what needs to be done, but I’m no expert on how to do it. I will, however, be coming with you. My implants will keep me in touch with Hal, and together we can deal with keeping the Invy AI off your back.”

  “No!” she said, putting her hands down on the table. “You’ll get in the way, and we’ll waste valuable people trying to guard you.”

  “It’s not open to discussion, Colonel. I’m going with you; you figure it out.”

  She stared at Warren, or more like at his hologram. He still sat in the ruined command post at Cheyenne Mountain, tied into the net.

  “You’re going to get good people killed, General.”

  “I’ll try my best not to, but if I don’t go, no one is going to make it. Besides, I’m qualified as a pilot on space vehicles, and if I remember correctly, Captain Ichijou is the only other pilot you have for that type of work.”

  “Yes, and she can pilot the shuttle just fine,” said General Dalpe.

  A smile spread on the younger man’s face, and he said, “I have something more to her liking.”

  “As long as you stay out of my planning and out of our way,” said Singh. She said it with a vengeance, haunted by the orders she’d already carried out earlier in the week. Since the raid on the compound on Long Island, Rachel Singh had been searching deep within her soul, trying to find her way again. As her moral compass swung, she fell into a deeper depression. Each time she tried to sleep, the image of human scientists being shot down by her own weapon jumped into her mind. Sleep came now only with drugs.

  “I’m giving you a canvas; paint on it, Colonel,” said Warren. “I’m just telling you what my place is in it.”

  “Good, as long as we understand each other.”

  “We do,” said Warren. “Now that the Invy are south of the border, so to speak, and the Lexington holds high orbit, I can disconnect. Please send me a C-17 with a fighter escort, and we need to get this place up and running again.” Then he blinked out.

  “Looks like the kid has grown up,” said Dalpe. “Giving orders like a proper leader now.”

  A scowl crossed Singh’s face, and she answered, “He’s got a lot to learn about leading; you can’t just give orders. People have to follow you because they believe.”

  “He’ll learn. You have to admit, his plan to knock out those cruisers worked,” said Colonel Jameson.

  “It’s totally different with a gun in your face, Dale,” said Singh.

  He motioned to his legs strapped in their wheelchair. “Don’t I know it, Rachel.”

  Chapter 110

  The October air was cool, coming off the Atlantic, but that didn’t make the training any easier. The mockup of Schickard Base had been built in a day, and the assault teams moved through the plywood buildings, firing first blanks, then live rounds through popup targets. Twenty men and women, five in each team, learning to lean on each other.

  “Again.” They didn’t complain.

  “Again.” Well, they complained internally.

  “Again.” They were getting tired now.

  “Again.” Bitching started.

  “Again.” The squad leaders told
them to shut the hell up, but they felt it too. Still, they were professionals, all of them. They would keep doing the job, because training would save their lives. There comes a point, though, where extended training gives back limited returns. The action was expected to be sharp and quick. Either they took the base, or they didn’t.

  “OK, lessons from this day. Sustain, Improve. Things we need to think of.” A white flip up pad of drawing paper stood on an easel, and Sergeant Reynolds stood to take notes, red hair stuck to her head with sweat. Sergeant Major Agostine stood off to one side; he’d been the one driving the training so hard all day.

  “I have one!” said Jonesy, raising his hand from the back row like a kid in school.

  Reynolds smiled and pointed. “Mr. Jones?”

  “I’ve got an Improve. How about we just take railguns and blow the shit out of the whole place? That would be an improvement.”

  There was a round of laughter, but Agostine didn’t crack a smile. “How about you actually enlist, get a commission, get promoted to the General Staff of the CEF, and make that suggestion there?”

  “Is there a bonus?” shot back Jonesy, with a deadpan face.

  Not to be one-upped, Agostine, still without a smile, said, “Free penicillin for gonorrhea.” THAT brought a loud burst of laughter, for Jones had recently been, well, laid low.

  “Why you gotta go there, Nick?” said Jonesy.

  “Because she did. Can we get on with this?”

  “That’s what she said!” shot back Jonesy.

  It was a good sign that the laughter spread through all the teams there. There were a lot of intangible things that made a good unit, and their time was short. Yes, they were all Scouts, but two of the teams were American, one was from England, not really a scout team, and the fourth was from Japan. The mix of languages didn’t help, though all spoke some form of English. Still, if he’d had enough men, Agostine would have gone with all Americans. Needs must when the devil dances, he thought to himself.