“Sir,” one of his men said. Pataki followed his finger and saw an alien aircraft take to the air. It looked like a drone to him, something comparable to the Predator recon drone, but as it flew, he saw that it carried bombs under its wings as well. Predators had been armed for years, but he hadn’t viewed them as a serious threat against a well-planned air defence system…but the aliens had shattered the American defences.
“I see it,” he said. There was nothing for it. They’d have to make another radio transmission. The system recorded the message and then transmitted it in one compressed burst, but he suspected that the aliens could detect microburst transmissions. They’d certainly proven themselves adapt at tracking other radio transmissions. “Recording…”
Having decided to take the risk, it was easy enough to make a complete report of everything they’d seen, including their count of alien tanks and other vehicles, as well as the aliens expanding their control over the landing site. They’d taken over a field and started to string up some kind of wire around it, something that reminded him of a holding pen for prisoners, although he doubted that they intended to capture the entire population of Texas. It was a good sign, in a way; it proved that they were taking prisoners. He completed the report and transmitted it…and then saw the aliens altering course. A group of them, marching on their strange legs, were heading up the hill.
“I saw them,” he said. They’d taken up as good a defensive position as possible, but he was certain that the aliens wouldn’t allow them to escape, not when they could surround the hill and intercept any attempt at fight. That left fighting or surrendering and he didn’t want to surrender, not when the aliens might have killed them all on sight. “Take aim…”
He levelled his M16 at an alien head, hidden behind a black helm, and his trigger finger tightened on the trigger. “Fire,” he snapped. Four shots rang out as one; four aliens tumbled to the ground. Their heads seemed to explode as the bullets passed through them, a sight that caused him to blink with disbelief; outside the movies, it wasn't that easy to literally shatter a person’s skull with a bullet. “Hit them again…”
An answering burst of fire flashed back at them. The sounds of the alien weapons were definitely different, but they seemed to work on similar principles; Pataki pulled a grenade off his belt, unhooked it and tossed it down towards the aliens. The explosion seemed to shake the ground; in its wake, he heard inhuman sounds of pain. They sounded like a trio of sea lions, or seals, howling their pain and outrage…and then an enemy grenade came over into their position. Pataki threw himself away from the weapon, watching in horror as one of his men tried to cover it with his body and was blown to bits when the grenade exploded. A second grenade, much closer, stunned him long enough for the aliens to break into their position; dazed, he realised in a moment of clarity that he’d lost his weapon. They peered down at him, their faces hidden behind their dark masks, and then pulled him to his feet. His body ached dreadfully, but they didn’t seem to notice, or care.
A buzz from one of the alien suits caught his attention. “You are our prisoner,” it said. “Do not attempt to resist.”
The aliens searched him quickly, and then marched him off towards their prison camp. He watched, helplessly, as thousands more aliens spilled out of their ships and headed towards the human cities, burning in the distance. One way or the other, he was out of the fight.
He could only hope that the rest of Third Corps was having better luck.
Chapter Fourteen
In peace or in war I have stood by thy side,
My country, for thee I have lived, would have died!
-Davy Crockett
The men and women of the Texas National Guard hadn’t seriously expected to have to fight an alien invasion. The 36th Infantry Division - also known as the Fighting 36th – had been deployed to strategic locations, but there had been an air of unreality about the entire proceedings. The aliens wouldn’t be landing at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, would they?
Captain Tom Wallis peered through the tank’s optical sensors and bite down a curse. They’d been wrong about the aliens being friendly and he and his tank were right in their path, along with the remains of what should have been a heavy BCT, attached to their unit at short notice. The idea had probably looked good to some staff weenie back in the Pentagon, but it had been pure hell for the tankers, many of whom had died when the aliens opened fire with KEW weapons on anything they saw from orbit. Several dozen Abrams and Bradley vehicles had met certain death when the aliens saw them, although they had sometimes ignored other vehicles on their own. They couldn’t have an unlimited supply of projectiles, after all, and expanding them all on individual tanks wouldn’t be cost-effective.
Or at least he hoped so. He’d managed to get the four tanks remaining in the platoon into the large warehouses by the side of the interstate. The latest reports, garbled over the radio – and rapidly silenced – or through the telephone lines and often out of date, had warned that the aliens had broken onto the interstate and started to advance down towards Austin. They were apparently blowing hell out of the civilian vehicles along the way and meeting some resistance from gun-owners in their path. Wallis doubted that the civilians would be able to do more than irritate the aliens, not unless they had some antitank missiles hidden in their cars, but they might slow the aliens down long enough for the National Guard to get organised. They might not be able to defeat the aliens in the field, but a fight in Austin would chew the aliens to bits, as long as they had enough time to prepare.
He scowled down at his watch as he peered into the distance, noting the rising columns of smoke and flashes of light, all coming closer. He’d been a tanker in Iraq and he recalled how Saddam had made the Iraqis switch their defences to the north, apparently under the delusion that the Coalition was about to make a new thrust out of Turkey. It had revealed the position of far too many Iraqi soldiers, who had paid for their leadership’s mistakes with their lives…and it was exactly what the aliens had done to America. Significant amounts of firepower, enough to stall or even defeat the aliens, was wandering around, trying to get back in touch with headquarters, or even other units. Between the jamming, the smashing of any radio transmitter and the complete control of the air, the aliens held all the cards. They were probably anticipating an easy mopping up operation.
Not fucking likely, he thought, as he stared into the distance. Four Abrams mounted a significant amount of firepower in their own right and there was an entire company of infantry, many of whom lived in Austin, providing support. The aliens would probably react at once when they opened fire, but even so, he expected that they would get at least three shots off before the aliens could hit them, assuming they stayed where they were. That would be suicide…and so he intended to move as soon as they opened fire. The only problem was that they hadn’t had time to exercise properly…
A green flare flashed up in the distance. He tensed, even as he muttered a quick command to the runner, sitting by the tank. The spotter had been ordered to fire the flare once the aliens came into view and then make himself scarce, hopefully finding a way out of the occupied zone and back to a military unit. Fort Hood was large enough to be extremely difficult to cleanse of human life…or, with a little luck, he might even make it to Louisiana or Oklahoma, if he didn’t find any other military units in Texas. Wallis prayed under his breath as the first of the alien tanks came in to view, heading right towards their position.
It was the first time he’d seen an alien vehicle and he drank the sight in greedily, hunting for weaknesses. The alien tank looked crude, but tough, tough enough, perhaps, to take a high explosive round and survive. That wasn't too surprising – the Abrams tanks were capable of taking one hell of a beating and remaining functional – but he’d loaded his guns with armour-piercing rounds. They were supposed to be capable of destroying any tank on Earth; they’d even been field-tested on other Abrams and other tanks. No one knew what they would do to the alien ta
nks; one of the other spotters was tasked with nothing more than watching the entire engagement from a safe distance – if there was such a thing – and reporting back to brigade HQ.
It’s hovering, he thought, with a flicker of envy. They’d been talking about hovering tanks for years, but as he knew, they remained firmly in science-fiction, rather than real life. It certainly didn’t leave the same trail of wreckage that a normal tank would leave behind on the interstate and it simply hovered over smaller obstacles. It was lucky that most of the civilians had simply abandoned their vehicles and fled; he didn’t want to see a massacre, not when he had to prepare as best as he could for the ambush.
“Take aim,” he ordered, watching the targeting display carefully. He’d assigned targets before seeing the aliens and it was a relief to see that his orders would hold. If the aliens had done something else, two or more tanks might have gone for the same target. That would have left at least one enemy tank completely unengaged. “Any sign of air support?”
“No, sir,” the observer called, from his position outside the tank. “They’re on their own.”
“Probably think they don’t need it,” Wallis said, and grinned. It didn’t matter how deadly the KEWs were; it would still take time for them to call in a strike on his position, and by then he would have moved. He wondered what the aliens thought of it; he would have given his teeth for a Warthog or a B52 high overhead, providing cover to the tankers. “Prepare to fire…”
He peered at the oncoming form of the alien tank for a long moment. “Fire!”
The Abrams shook as it fired, the sound of the shot deafening, even through the tank’s armour. He’d ordered the crewmen outside to wear their ear-protectors, but if they’d slipped up even slightly, they’d have been deafened. There wasn't time to worry about them; he barked orders and the tank’s turret hurriedly traversed to the next target, barking out a second shot towards the alien vehicle. The first shell, he saw with some relief, had blown right through the alien vehicle and left it in flaming wreckage, the second had had a similar result. Their tank, he saw with a burst of emotion that surprised him, were far from invincible. Between them, nine alien tanks were in ruins…
“Move us,” he ordered. The driver didn’t have to be told twice; he gunned the engine and the tank rocketed backwards, out of the rear entrance of the warehouse. They’d be visible from orbit now, but there was no helping that, not now; a moment after they’d vacated the warehouse, a thunderous explosion shook the entire complex and sent the warehouse up in flames. “Get us to the second firing position!”
An echoing sound announced the arrival of return fire. The aliens were firing into all of the warehouses, not just the ones occupied by the tanks, and shattering explosions blew through the complex. Warehouse after warehouse was wiped out, destroying two of the Abrams along with them, destroyed before their crews could escape. His vehicle rocked and shook as it reached the next firing position, where he could see the aliens tanks ripping apart the complex and, behind them, alien infantrymen dismounting from their armoured fighting vehicles. They probably intended to storm whatever remained of the complex and deal with the human survivors before they could escape to fight again. They had to be…delayed.
“Fire,” he snapped. They had to act quickly before the aliens saw them. “Fire at will!”
The Abrams fired twice in quick succession while the driver put the vehicle through a spinning series of manoeuvres. It wasn't quick enough. An alien missile, fired from an invisible drone a kilometre above the tank, blew through the turret and roasted the crew alive. The alien infantry pushed through the National Guardsmen and engaged them in brutal fighting, before sealing the complex off and pushing onwards towards Austin.
***
“This is the emergency broadcast system,” the voice said. Coming from a pair of old laptop speakers, it was somehow tinny and almost inaudible. The power supply had fallen to almost nothing and the laptop – and the entire apartment – was running on batteries. They had never thought of a portable generator. “Austin is under attack.”
“No shit,” Joshua growled. It had been increasingly obvious, as they’d watched from the roof, that the city was on the verge of coming under assault. It was clever of Governor Brogan and his staff to think of using streaming internet radio for their transmission, but the entire network in Austin was on the verge of failing. Joshua suspected that between the alien bombardment and human incompetence, the national communications system was about to fall apart. It hadn’t been designed with this sort of mistreatment in mind. “Tell us something we don’t know, you fat pig!”
Governor Brogan kept talking. “I do not know what will become of us under alien rule, but I urge every citizen to remain calm and refrain from rash acts,” he continued. “Our attempts to signal the aliens have met with no response, but they cannot want to slaughter us all. I hope – I believe – that peaceful co-existence is possible.”
He sounds like a broken man, Joshua thought, feeling an unexpected burst of sympathy for the Governor. He had never respected the man before the invasion had begun, but now…what would he do now? He’s watching his entire state being dismantled in front of his eyes. Does he want to surrender?
“Please remain calm and obey their instructions,” the governor said, his voice now weaker than ever. “Please don’t attempt to resist them…”
“Turn it off,” the gun nut snapped. “They’re not going to sell us out to them!”
“Be reasonable,” Mr Adair said, grimly. “What are you going to do against the aliens with your hunting rifle? There’s an entire army out there.”
There was another burst of firing in the distance. This burst seemed to go on forever, a horrendous mixture of weapons and explosions. He couldn’t tell, even, the direction of the shooting; it all seemed to have blended into one catastrophic whole. Three massive explosions, each one larger than the last, shook the walls and sent dust tumbling down from the ceiling. They’d taped over the windows, remembering that that had worked back in London, during the Blitz, but the sound was just getting closer. The weapons had to have fallen within a kilometre of their position…
“I’m going to join the militia,” the gun nut said, and slipped out of the room before anyone could object.
Joshua watched him go. The militia had been organised, quickly, to back up the defenders of the city…and, looking at them, he suspected that they would be more dangerous to themselves than the enemy. Some of them had military experience, but others merely shot at ranges, if they shot at all. The reservists and most ex-military types had been recalled to join the army. They wouldn’t be providing vital and experienced leadership.
“I’m going up to the roof,” he said, and left the room as well. He looked down towards the basement, where they’d placed the children and everyone who hadn’t wanted to remain above the ground floor, before heading upwards. The entire building shook, again, as he staggered up the stairs, taking a moment to unlock the padlock they’d placed on the door. They hadn’t wanted someone on the roof when the aliens entered the city, but Joshua knew that if he could provide an eyewitness report…
No, he thought, as he stepped onto the roof. This was for him.
Austin was burning. Wherever he looked, there was a fire, burning through the city. The sound of shooting had been bad inside, but outside it was worse, an endless cacophony. He saw a line of missiles fired somewhere from within the city, aimed at the aliens on the outskirts, only to see the missies explode in fight and their launch site explode a moment later. The defenders were being forced back into the city, cleared out building by building, while the aliens pushed closer to the apartment. Streaks of light fell from the heavens, picking off strongpoints one by one, shattering the defenders. Army, National Guard, police forces, militia…they were dying out there, dying to defend their city.
And the gun nut was out there too. Joshua would have liked to believe that he was just a poser, that he would take one look at the conflict and
try to run, but he knew the man better than that. It bothered him, somehow, that he didn’t know the man’s name. Once, he would have enquired for his story, or his hot tips to an editor who could be induced to pay a few hundred dollars for them, but now…now he wanted to know for himself. The man would probably die out there, defending his city…and the least that Joshua could do was remember the man’s damned name.
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