“No,” Cicoi said, surprising himself. “We cannot send all of the ships down.”
If we are to destroy the creatures—
“We cannot destroy all of the creatures. We can only show them our superior power.”
You are afraid, the Elder said.
Cicoi turned his eight remaining eyestalks toward the Elder in direct defiance of tradition. “I am not afraid,” he said. “I must guarantee my people’s lives. You do not need food or energy or water. We do. We have already lost pods and nestlings. We have not revived entire sections on this Pass. All of the food we have gathered sits in these ships. We shall not risk it all for retaliation.”
They will not know what we are doing. They— “They have proven tremendously resourceful. If they have discovered a way to destroy ships—”
They would have done so by now. The Elder raised his upper tentacles, showing that he recognized and disapproved of Cicoi’s rudeness. Instead they tried to attack and we thwarted them. They do not have enough time to come up with a new plan.
“We have underestimated them too many times,” Cicoi said. He rose on his lower tentacles so that the Elder could continue to see his offensive eyestalks, pointing in the wrong direction. “I command this fleet, and I shall make the final determination. I agree with you. We must attack them, but we shall do so with only half of our ships. If we lose them, we still have enough for starvation rations.”
You are planning for failure.
Cicoi’s upper tentacles wrapped so tightly around his torso that they would leave welts. Failure. That was the word for all of his command. Of course he was planning for failure.
He would be a fool not to.
“If you’re wrong, and they destroy all of our ships,” Cicoi said, as levelly as he could, “then our people die. If I’m wrong, and they destroy only half of our ships, then we have a future. You can call that planning for failure if you want. I think it sensible.”
The Elder turned his own eyestalks toward Cicoi. It was an eerie look, for Cicoi couldn’t see the eyes on the tips. Only darkness all the way up. You will not change this decision, will you?
Cicoi felt his upper tentacles loosen. The Elder was admitting that no matter what the decision, Cicoi would win. Cicoi was the only one of them who could command the crew.
“No,” Cicoi said, not changing his physical position at all. “I will not.”
The Elder let his eyestalks wilt, a sign of submission. Cicoi tried not to let his own eyestalks bulge in surprise.
Then, the Elder said. I suggest we make one other change.
Cicoi braced himself for another argument, but the Elder didn’t seem to notice.
I suggest we divide the remaining ships into five harvesters, each guarded by a fighter. That will give us seven squads. We send each squad to a population center.
Cicoi’s upper tentacles rose with excitement. This might work. “The creatures like to cluster,” he said. “Five harvesters and all of their Sulas might be enough to take out all seven population centers.”
The Elder’s upper tentacles rose as well. You approve of the plan?
“If we have to attack,” Cicoi said, “this is the best way to do it.”
Then let us pick the centers, the Elder said, and headed out of the private room.
“I’ll do that,” Cicoi said. He wanted to maintain as much control as possible.
November 13, 2018
6:39 a.m. Eastern Standard Time
Second Harvest: Fourth Day
Maddox had just finished the last slice of cold pepperoni pizza. The gourmet chefs bunkered down with the staff were probably frustrated. Put a group of Americans under stress and they wanted junk food, not low-fat specialty foods made out of ingredients no one recognized.
The pizzas had come in about an hour ago. This was the first chance Maddox had had to try a slice. Nothing tasted better than cold pepperoni, especially to someone as hungry as she was.
The war room looked extremely busy, and it felt like home. The patchwork hologram of Earth faced her like a battered child. She was going to defend it this time. She swore she was.
She picked up a can of Diet Coke and took a sip when Ward said, “Sir, the alien ships are breaking orbit.”
She set the can down, knowing she would forget about it entirely in the next few minutes. She’d been lucky to get anything to eat at all.
“I need a visual,” she said. By that, she meant she wanted the holographic representation. That had been working beautifully for her.
“Sir,” said one of the techs down front, “only half of the ships are leaving orbit. And they’re splitting up into seven groups.”
The pizza Maddox had just finished churned in her stomach. Predictable, Cross had said. And if they weren’t predictable, they sent a message with their changes. An unintentional message, but a message all the same.
She wasn’t sure she liked the message she was getting. “You’re sure about this?”
“Yes, sir.”
She went to her own screen, touched it, and saw the same information. Seven of the fighters that had destroyed her planes were escorting the harvesting ships.
“I’m not getting a reading on directions,” she said.
“Three groups coming toward the North American continent, two toward Asia, two toward Europe.”
“Shit, shit, shit,” she said, not as softly as she had hoped.
She looked up. The visuals were there. She could see how the ships were separating, how they were splitting into different directions. She mentally extended those directions onto a course, and tried to imagine what the aliens were aiming at.
It didn’t take her long to figure it out.
“Cities!” she said. “They are going for major cities!”
Her staff was too well trained to react to that, but she knew how they were feeling.
She was feeling the same way. Frustrated and furious. Why couldn’t those bastards play by the rules they had set up?
“Fighters are all standing by,” Ward said. “Confirm launch orders?”
She touched the blinking red light on her screen, the one that was keyed to her fingerprint. A light extended from the screen, giving her a retinal scan. She did her best not to blink.
Then the link confirmed her, and within seconds, President Franklin’s face appeared.
He looked years older than the last time she had seen him—and that had only been hours ago.
“Mr. President?” she said.
“I see what’s happening, General.” He was back in the war room beneath the White House. She wanted to kiss whoever had convinced him to go there. “Do you know what it is?”
“I believe they are going to attack cities, sir.” Franklin cursed loudly and creatively.
“My sentiments exactly, sir.”
“Those nanorescuers had better work, Maddox.”
As if she would be able to do anything if they didn’t. “Yes, sir,” she said. “But I’d rather not test them.” Franklin grinned. It was one of the nastiest looks she had ever seen on a human face.
“I agree, General,” he said. “Blow them out of the sky.”
“Understood, sir.”
She turned to Ward. “Launch orders confirmed. All planes are ordered to attack when in range. All targets must be above twenty thousand feet. No lower.”
She took a deep breath and then stood there, hands behind her back, waiting.
Watching.
At the moment, there was nothing more for her to do.
November 13, 2018
6:46 a.m. Eastern Standard Time
Second Harvest: Fourth Day
All the screens in Britt’s lab were monitoring the alien ships. Satellites caught images of some of them. Others were being traced, in real time, by telemetry while someone—Cross had no idea who—translated that telemetry into real images.
On the main screen in the front of the room, Britt had asked for a large world map. On it, the trajectories of the alie
n ships were displayed.
Only half of the ships were coming down, but thirty-five were harvesters and seven were those fighters from before. They had split off and were going in seven different directions.
Britt was tracking them now. She and Cross had had the same idea: trace the trajectories and try to figure out where the ships were going.
Cross wanted to get up and pace, but the last time he had done that, he had made the entire team nervous. So he leaned on a desk and drummed his fingers on his legs, wishing he hadn’t been right about the third attack.
But that was all he had been right about. He had thought that the third attack would have been like all the others: three groups over three different areas, largely using harvesting ships.
This change had him baffled.
He didn’t like the feeling.
He also didn’t like the way that the aliens had thrown away millennia of experience to adapt to Earth’s attacks.
These aliens were a lot more flexible than he had given them credit for. He was glad they only had a short window for this next attack. If they had had time for a fourth, he wouldn’t have known what to do.
“Leo.” Britt spoke softly, but she caught the attention of everyone in the room. She was standing near her desk, her body hunched over it as if protecting anyone else from seeing what she had found.
He hurried to her side. On the screen was the same map of the world, only here the ships’ trajectories had been plotted into a course with a probable destination.
Cities.
Of course.
Cross felt the breath leave his body.
London.
Moscow.
Beijing.
Seoul.
New York.
Los Angeles.
Chicago.
Son of a bitch.
It was as if they had maps of the major population centers of the world. Maybe they did. These creatures were resourceful, after all.
“This isn’t a food run,” Britt said softly. “This is a war retaliation run. They want to hurt us enough to make us leave them alone. And the only way to do that would be to hit our population centers.”
Cross stared at the trajectories and suggested targets. They’d missed a lot, of course. Tokyo, Miami, Paris, Berlin. But the ones they’d chosen had been incredibly sound. They would destroy areas that would harm the world economy, as well as the areas themselves. And destroy seats of governments.
“Alien ships at sixty thousand and dropping,” said Odette Roosevelt. “Still no visual, but we should be picking up some shortly.”
Cross looked up at the screens, but they still weren’t showing much that he could understand.
Suddenly one screen burst into an intense white light, then went dark again.
“Was that us?” Britt asked, glancing around at her people. “Did one of the screens go?”
“No,” someone said from the back of the room. “That was a visual.”
“Of what?”
Cross felt the same question shudder through him. What had just happened?
Voices raised all over the lab.
People stood, and Cross could see hands working, touching screens and finessing work.
Britt bumped him out of the way and, with the touch of two fingers, got rid of the projected targets screens. Numbers poured across her desk, and while she might have understood them, Cross didn’t.
Another screen flared white.
Then another, and another.
Cross felt himself grow cold.
Did the aliens have a way to bomb the cities from a higher elevation? Was he seeing the destruction of his own people?
The voices around him grew louder.
The normally contained scientists were shouting at each other for more information. Some of them stood on chairs to see the displays better.
Others were still bent over their desks, trying to figure out what was going on.
Britt was cursing under her breath.
Cross started to pace.
Another screen flared white.
The shouting in the room increased.
“That’s it! That’s it! That’s it!’ Britt shouted, clearly angry.
Her voice sounded shriller than Cross had ever heard it. She managed to shout her way through the noise.
Her staff quieted down. They all looked to her like unruly school children who had been caught misbehaving.
Cross looked at them and knew exactly how they all felt. They did look like children, but like children who wanted her to find a way to save them.
“You all have to calm down,” Britt said. “We need answers and we need them fast. Others are depending on us. Now, figure out what’s happening out there.”
A few more screens flared white.
Then the same screens again.
Then more and more.
Cross quickly lost count.
“It seems,” Roosevelt said, “that we are attacking and blowing up the alien ships.”
“How?” Britt demanded.
Cross slapped the heel of his hand against his forehead. Of course. All those arguments long ago. “Maddox,” he said with approval.
“What?” Britt turned on him. “You know what’s going on?”
He grinned at her. He couldn’t contain himself. The phrase “blowing up alien ships” was beginning to sink in. “I have an educated guess.”
“Then educate the rest of us,” Britt snapped. “They’re atomic charges,” he said. “Shaped charges, aimed from a mile or so away at the alien ships. Nothing could withstand such a blast. It seems that General Maddox finally got to use her nukes.”
Someone whistled behind him. “That explains my readings.”
“And mine.”
“Is that right?” Britt asked, glancing at her people, then back at Cross. “Are we destroying alien ships?” “Well,” Roosevelt said. “Something’s exploding out there and it’s not what’s sending off those charges. They’re hitting something. And correct me if I’m wrong, but we’ve seen a lot of technical wizardry for those aliens, but we ain’t never seen no nukes.” “That’s right,” Cross said.
The screens were still flaring around them. Cross wanted to get closer, to see more, but he knew this was a battle being fought in skies far from him. Even if he went outside, he wouldn’t be able to see anything. And if he were on the ground below the battles, the best thing he could do was be inside.
“How many alien ships have we destroyed so far?” Cross asked.
“It looks like half,” Roosevelt said.
“Twenty,” Britt said, looking at her own screen. “The rest are climbing back toward orbit.”
“You’re kidding,” Cross said, staring at the monitor. It wasn’t telling him anything.
“I’m not,” Britt said. “The aliens are retreating. The ships in orbit are breaking out of orbit, headed for the tenth planet.”
There was a moment of stunned silence around the room.
Cross had never felt anything like it before. It was as if every nerve in his body was about to explode.
Then everyone shouted at once.
Cross felt that silly grin he’d been wearing grow.
And grow. He hadn’t felt like this—maybe ever.
Maybe he, too, had thought they were going to lose this battle.
He turned to Britt and gathered her in his arms.
She wrapped herself around him, pulling him close.
It was the best hug he had felt in his entire life.
And for some reason, neither of them wanted to let go of the other.
12
November 15, 2018
12:06 Universal Time
Second Harvest: Fourth Day
Commander Cicoi stood at his command center, his eyestalks floating free, his upper tentacles splayed on the center’s controls. His lower tentacles were wrapped on the command circle, and he was forcing himself to stand as tall as possible.
He had failed, and he could not put himself
into the recycler. He was fighting every bit of training he had ever had to keep himself here, in charge of what remained of the fleet.
If he had not stood up to the Elder, all of the harvester ships would have been destroyed. There would have been nothing left to feed his people.
If he had not stood up to the Elder, the explosives the creatures of the third planet had sent toward Malmur would have destroyed it.
He had succeeded as well. But not in the ways he had planned. He had hoped to feed all his people, to defeat the creatures of the third planet, and to return home triumphant. Now he would have to defend himself and his leadership until the time for sleep.
The Elder had disappeared. As the strange explosives—similar in energy signature to the ones that had hit Malmur in that surprise attack—had destroyed ships, the Elder had slowly faded away. Cicoi kept expecting him to reappear, but he hadn’t.
The Elder was smart enough to know that he had ordered this destruction. If he had led this command entirely, Malmur would be a dead planet, with the remains of a once great civilization.
As it was, the Malmuria would struggle with the greatest disaster they had faced since they lost their sun. Only it wasn’t as great a disaster as it could have been.
And Cicoi had learned something else. The ancient knowledge was valuable. The Elders had ideas and weapons and experiences that he could never have.
But they did not understand modern Malmur. They had lived in a time of great wealth and privilege. Until this disaster, the Elder had not realized how fragile Malmur was.
And it was very fragile.
But it was also very strong.
Cicoi moved his first upper tentacle and checked on the fleet. They were heading home now, lighter than they had come. He had ordered the retreat because he knew they had no way of fighting the creatures’ weapons.
The creatures were living through the same prolonged period of wealth the Elders had lived through.
The creatures had unlimited resources—or so it seemed—and the determination to use them.
Cicoi could not fight that.
So he had stopped trying.
He was limping home with sixty ships, more than half of the 108 he had started with. Enough, as he had said to the Elder, to feed his people starvation rations. Or to keep half of the population healthy, depending on the decision made by the Council.
Final Assault Page 17