Thunder & Lightning
Page 22
He ground his teeth. It wasn't going to happen.
* * *
He'd been kept in suspension since the final flight to one of the warships for the transit to the human star; he’d been awoken two months before the fleet had entered the human solar system and commenced offensive operations. It had been a period of extensive training; the Oghaldzon had had trained and experienced soldiers, but the human way of warfare was something different. Oghaldzon fought to protect their civilisation from the practitioners of ThrillKill and MemeKill; humans seemed to fight at the drop of a hat…and how they fought! Their broadcasts seemed to suggest that they were racially insane when it came to fighting; no Oghaldzon force would fight to the last man if surrender was a possibility, and it would always be a possibility. Oghaldzon wars were fought to defeat ill ideas, never to exterminate or crush ideas, unless a particularly dangerous ThrillKill or MemeKill gained control of an army. The idea of exterminating the opposition on general principles was alien to them.
Warag-Soldier-Infantry checked his armour as the landing cone made its final approach to the destination. Warag and his comrades were nervous; in human terms, they could be considered light infantry, or even policemen. Before preparing the operations against the humans, they had served mainly to suppress isolated outbreaks of ThrillKill; ever since the final MemeKill War, they hadn’t been required to fight a major war. They had experience; Warag suspected that his family – the soldiers were a family in Oghaldzon terms – was ill-prepared for human warfare. They would learn, rapidly, but would it be quickly enough?
The area of Earth that had been selected as a landing zone had been devastated by the tidal waves the Oghaldzon had accidentally caused. They themselves always ensured that any orbiting asteroid was fitted with a nuclear device to blow it apart if there was a real danger; by the time they realised that the human asteroids either didn’t carry such devices, or that there was no one left to trigger the explosions, it had been almost too late. Warag mourned for the millions of humans who might be killed because of the stubbornness of their masters, who practiced the forbidden passions, but it would make establishing a beachhead much easier. The principle wouldn’t change; the humans would throw everything they had at the landing zones before the Oghaldzon could deploy, and anything that delayed that was fine by him. His implant recorded a constant stream of intelligence from drones as they were deployed out of the landing craft; the human cities below were in ruins.
An alarm sounded. “Prepare for landing,” a voice snapped, the clicking echoing out in the darkness. Warag caressed his people with his sonar; the fifty-one infantry soldiers were among the best that the Oghaldzon could produce…and they had trained extensively for their mission. It wasn't going to be easy; Warag would have preferred the devastation to be much greater, but that would have been a ThrillKill crime…and a pointless one. “Landing now…”
The noise of the final bursts of fusion flame from the drive echoed through the craft, and then there was a single bump, shaking the craft…and then the hatches opened. Warag didn’t have to issue orders; the infantry were already heading out of the hatchers and spreading out, the two weapons that each of them carried raised and ready for action. There were no signs of any live humans; outside the charred regions caused by the fusion flame, there were only dead bodies and a strange, unpleasant smell. He hoped that the researchers were right about human diseases not being able to spread to the Oghaldzon; the decaying bodies would have to be exposed to a fusion flame before they proved deadly to the humans they had come to save…
“There’s no sign of any organised human opposition,” Kodak-Soldier-Infantry reported. The clicking of her voice was relieved; they all had weapons and training…and heavier vehicles were even now starting to emerge from the landing craft, spreading out to maintain a perimeter where the Oghaldzon could operate without hindrance. Most human aircraft had been shot out of the sky or had been knocked down by the weather, but the Oghaldzon deployed laser platforms anyway, just in case. “The drones are reporting hundreds of live humans heading away from us, but none of them seem to be soldiers.”
Warag clicked a reproachful tone into his voice. “We might not recognise a human soldier until he started to shoot at us,” he said, warningly. Dull throbbing echoed across the sky as more landing craft appeared, bringing down more soldiers and equipment; soon, they would be able to secure the remains of the human city and advance inland. “Keep a careful watch and always err on the side of caution.”
He glanced around, his sonar clicking like mad; the humans seemed to have no sense of aesthetics when it came to building. They were all ugly great blocks; the dim light of the cloud cover didn’t hide much from the Oghaldzon, who had evolved on a much darker world. The damage had been extensive; in some ways, they had actually done the humans a favour. A line of armoured assault vehicles glided past, followed by an automated laser station and more infantry; Warag issued orders and his infantry family spread out, taking up the positions issued to them. It wouldn’t be long before they saw combat against the humans.
He peered into the west, out over the land. The humans were out there somewhere, gathering their strength and preparing to hit back as hard as they could. It was what he would have done.
He was equally determined to ensure that they failed.
Chapter Twenty-Four: Invasion, Take Two
Eastern Seaboard, USA
“Oh, come on,” Markus Wilhelm demanded, as the first of the alien craft appeared. “What the hell did we do to deserve this?”
The small group had spent an uncomfortable day on the roof. The chairperson had forbidden anyone from going into the interior of the skyscraper for the first few hours, but finally, faced with rebellion from the handful of people who lived elsewhere in the city, she had relented and allowed them to leave, warning them to be careful. Wilhelm had accompanied them as far as the stairwell, watching how the interior of the skyscraper had been transformed overnight into a derelict ruin right out of a horror movie, complete with half-naked girls. Water flowed everywhere, heading down towards the surface; dead bodies were scattered everywhere, along with half-alive and dead fish, crabs and other monsters from the depths. Wilhelm had never liked crabs – their mincing claws had always scared him as a child – but he was almost relieved to see some signs of life apart from their small group. The remaining ten survivors had returned to the roof, gazing out over their eerily silent city.
It wasn’t a quiet silence. From time to time, they heard gunshots and shouts, some of them very loud in the silence. The chairperson had guessed that looters had come to call, but warned them to keep their mouths shut; they knew nothing about the situation on the ground and the rapidly changing weather didn’t reassure them. As clear skies because cloudy, giving birth to a thunderstorm right out of nightmares, they huddled as best as they could under whatever shelter they could find. Gusts of wind shook the skyscraper; Wilhelm wondered just how long it would remain standing.
The radio was no help; the airwaves were full of static and strange chaos, something that sent a chill down his spine. He’d thought he had heard a human voice speaking once, but the jamming – the chairperson thought it was jamming – resumed, stronger than ever. He hadn’t been able to make out the words.
“They’ll be sending recovery teams into the chaos,” the chairperson repeated, for the tenth time. Stuart, one of the men on the roof, had been loudly advocating that they should attempt to make their way west and out of the city. “Once they find us, they’ll send help; we should see helicopters soon, hunting for groups like ours…”
There hadn’t been any helicopters; Wilhelm found that more ominous than he liked. Helicopters, as far as he knew, had short ranges; it was possible that every helicopter within range had been destroyed by the tidal waves, but surely they could have brought some from outside the effects of the tidal wave? Had the wave swept over the entire country? It seemed impossible, but…
They glanced up as they heard the
faint noise of an aircraft, but there was nothing to see in the sky; the choppy wind conditions would make flying difficult. He hoped that that was the real reason for the absence of helicopters and other flying craft; he didn’t want to think about the alternative. The skies were still raining fiery streaks of debris down onto the planet; was that making flying operations difficult, or…
A new sound split the air, a dull thrumming that grew and grew in intensity, even as the cloud cover started to glow and split open, revealing blinding yellow-white lights that seemed to be falling gently towards the coastline. The noise rapidly became painful; he clasped both hands over his ears as it grew and grew, finally dulling slightly as the vehicles – alien craft, his mind whispered – completed their descent. He staggered over to the edge of the roof, ignoring the shaking gusts of hot air and bursts of light that seemed to be almost directed at him personally, and peered down towards the alien craft. It was massive; he’d seen ocean liners that were smaller than that, and…
There had been the remains of a skyscraper there; they’d seen it and thanked God that its fall hadn’t smashed against their skyscraper and started an obscene game of dominos. The remains had now been melted by the sheer heat of the fusion flame; the aliens had created themselves a landing pad and firm foundation for their invasion fleet through simply melting anything under their landing. He hoped – prayed – that no one had been caught under the flames; they had to have died without knowing what had ever hit them. The alien craft, a huge cone almost as large as the skyscraper, had landed; there were a sudden slap of a wave of cold against his face, and then there was silence.
The chairperson moved up beside him. “Get your scope,” she snapped. Wilhelm nodded, wondering why he hadn’t thought of it, and recovered it from where it had fallen, near Carola. He gave her a brave smile as he peered down at the alien craft; the side of the craft was opening now, revealing…for a moment, his mind refused to take in the shape of the deer-like aliens, or the almost toy-like weapons they carried in their hands. He’d owned more impressive toy water pistols when he was a child. The chairperson was more impressed as the aliens spread out, securing the landing zone; he heard her muttering under her breath about trained soldiers and the lack of resistance.
“We should fight them,” she said, hoisting her weapon. “Get your guns and…”
“No,” Carola said, sharply enough to draw everyone’s attention to her. “We’re not soldiers and there are civilians present here--” a drone buzzed over their heads; Wilhelm looked up and saw the alien machine looking at them before it flew off into the distance “--and we are not prepared to fight a war here.”
The Chairperson looked at her as if she had sprouted a third eye, or perhaps grown a beard in the blink of an eye. “The country is being invaded,” she snapped. “We have to do something…”
“Then get out of here,” Carola snapped back. A line of yellow-streaks across the sky revealed the presence of a missile battery; Wilhelm suspected that someone was engaging the aliens, judging by the direction of the missiles. He silently wished them luck. “There’s no point in getting ourselves killed for nothing…because they already know we’re here and there’s no chance of even killing one of them. There are soldiers out there!”
The Chairperson made a wordless gesture of contempt, picked up her heavy weapon, and headed down towards the stairwell. Stuart joined her; Wilhelm would have – maybe – joined her if Carola hadn’t been there, but Carola was right. There was little point in putting up a fight they would almost certainly lose. The noise of more alien craft appeared; he saw what he guessed were alien tanks and alien fast patrol bikes, practically flying through the air like the vehicles from Star Wars. The sight almost made him smile, despite the surreal nature of the view; the deer-like aliens – with only three legs – were moving rapidly out through the city, around the city, and further into the country. Judging by some of the landings he had seen, the aliens had landed around the city as well, expanding the area they controlled with ease. Was there anything that could stop them?
He heard a gunshot, then a handful of gunshots, and then an explosion that almost shook the building. He heard one of the girls scream, her brother comforting her as best as he could; the aliens had shattered their comfortable lives and replaced them with chaos.
Was there anything that could stop the aliens?
* * *
Roughly three kilometres to the west, on the edge of the build-up area, Captain Christopher Fardell was having similar thoughts. The battlesuits had armoured up again as the aliens had started to land, relying on the audio-discrimination software built into their suits to allow them to locate the real alien landings and separate them from the countless false reports that were filtering into what remained of the command chain. The aliens seemed to be coming down to the north and south of Washington, with landings reported almost as north as New York and as west as Richmond. The damage to human installations was much reduced the further inland they considered, but almost everywhere on the coast or near a river had been badly damaged. Washington and Baltimore had been hit badly by tidal waves; judging from the alien landing positions, they intended to close in on Washington as rapidly as they could and crush the human government before it had a chance to react.
Bastards, he thought, knowing that the battlesuits were, in a very real sense, already behind enemy lines. They had their links to the main military internet, but there was a great deal of hysterical shouting and even more confusion; they had already recovered orders to evacuate, which had then been countermanded and replaced by orders to hold the aliens as long as possible, to orders to launch a recon mission and then pull out to join the main defence lines where – when – they were formed. Intelligence was important, but he would have preferred to have a mission that had a hope of actual success; unless the aliens were stupid, they would have secured the area around their landing craft as soon as they landed. If there had been resistance, either civilian or the remains of the military in the area – FEMA had organised the survivors into units that might be of assistance – there was no sign of it…
“Missiles,” O’Malley snapped, as a line of missiles rose up and headed towards one of the alien landing zones. Fardell remembered that there had been an anti-aircraft site somewhere nearby and it had clearly survived the tidal wave enough to take a hand in the defence of the area. Moments later, there was a shattering explosion from the west; no more missiles rose to challenge the alien craft.
“Fuck,” Fardell said, as calmly as he could. The battlesuits were still advancing, but he ordered them to spread out more and present as little of a target as they could, helped by local knowledge and – perhaps – the knowledge of what they could do against a prepared enemy. They’d crept up on Wrecker bases before, with scrutinising programs examining the feed off countless civilian satellites that somehow seemed to be always orbiting the area that American forces were operating in; they could do it again against aliens who wouldn’t know what to look for. He could see, in the distance, the shape of the alien landing craft; smoke rose from where the craft had landed. He tried to formulate a thought of a missile striking the craft and setting it on fire, but he knew better than to convince himself that the missile attack had been that useful; a single assumption could prove fatal. The Wreckers, by and large, fought by the same rules as the American Army; the aliens might not even share a playbook.
“They can’t intend to get that thing off the ground,” Browning said. He had once harboured hopes of transferring to the Space Marines, the imaginative name for the handful of Marines who served in space and on the various colonies, and had spent years reading everything he could about spaceflight. “It’s far too large to take off again; I’m surprised they actually managed to get it down without losing control and crashing against the ground. It should have crashed…”
“Perhaps it did,” O’Malley suggested. His voice held a certain undisguised optimistic feeling. “Perhaps they’re all dead…”
He saw the human bodies, scattered around the area, and ground his teeth. The deer-like aliens might be humorous in appearance, but there was nothing funny about their actions; they were going to pay for what they had done. The skimmers came closer, the aliens moving rapidly from side to side to prevent someone taking a bead on them, a precaution that would be completely useless against his own people. They had already practiced against high-speed targets…
“Fire,” he snapped, and unleashed a burst of heavy fire from his hand cannon. The hand cannon had been designed – so the rumour went – by a man with an incredibly small penis; it overcompensated to the point of being heavy and almost impossible to use, only a man wearing a battlesuit could carry it comfortably, let alone handle the recall. The first alien seemed to stagger; he felt his mouth fall open as the bullets barely sliced through his – or hers – armour, before falling off the bike, which exploded in a burst of fire. The second alien died when his bike exploded.