General Hastings scowled at her. “There has never been an alien spacecraft at Area 51,” he said, irritated. The internet had been filled with speculation that there had been sixty years worth of warning of the invasion, during which nothing had been done to prepare for their coming. “Groom Lake was also hit, badly, from orbit and was seriously damaged. Recovery efforts are underway, but it is unlikely that anything there will be able to help us, apart from the lasers.”
The President leaned forward. “Lasers?”
“They’re a key part of Operation Lone Star,” Paul injected. It was something he hadn’t wanted to discuss. “If we can use them as a surprise, the aliens may find that countering our attack becomes much harder.”
There was an uncomfortable pause. They were faced with the task of ordering an attack that might fail…and, in doing so, leave large parts of the country exposed to alien attack. Thousands of American soldiers might die, for nothing. None of them were used to making such decisions and the prospect hypnotised them. Deborah, finally, broke the silence.
“If we lose,” she asked, “what happens to us?”
Paul shivered. “According to the documents, civilians will be brought into the faith, military soldiers will be offered a chance to fight for them, religious leaders will be, at best, jailed and leaders will be killed,” he explained. “They don’t intend to build a new and prosperous state, not like we did when we went into Iraq, but to crush us and completely re-work our society into their image. If they win, existence as we know it is over. At best, we will be their slaves for the rest of time, unless our descendents can organise a revolt. At worst…”
“At worst, they drop an asteroid or fry the planet and kill us all,” General Hastings growled. The frustration in his voice was easy to hear. “It kind of makes you wonder why they haven’t simply threatened us with complete devastation if we don’t surrender.”
“It could be a religious thing,” Paul said, softly. He hated to admit ignorance, but there was no choice, not when the fate of the entire planet was involved. “There is still so little that we understand about their society.”
“Is there a bio-threat?” Deborah asked suddenly. “Might they catch something nasty off us and drop dead?”
“I don’t think so,” Paul said, after a moment. “They took enough samples from the captured ambassadors to check that they could live here safely. I don’t think that the common cold will be wiping them out anytime soon.”
“We live in hope,” the President said. He pulled himself up to a sitting position and looked them firmly in the eye, suddenly galvanised into action. “General?”
“Yes, Mr President?”
“I am hereby ordering you to start making preparations to launch Operation Lone Star within a week,” the President said. His voice, at least, was firm; Paul noted Deborah’s surprise and wondered why she was so interested. “Keep it non-nuclear if possible…”
“We need to use some EMP,” Paul said, quickly. It wasn’t a part of the plan that could be removed fairly quickly without impinging on everything else. “We need some of the nukes, Mr President. They won’t be used on the ground.”
“Make it so,” the President said. “General, the country is counting on this. Make it happen…and may God help us all.”
Chapter Twenty
Where the laws of war have worked to migrate the horror and protect innocent life they have…done so when the combatants shared the same values and had what we might like to think of a basic decency.
-Tom Kratman
The alien holding pen was massive. Ringed by barbed wire and guarded by a handful of alien tanks, it held upwards of four thousand American prisoners, spread out over a set of smaller holding pens. The soldiers and other men and women captured during the invasion occupied one large section of the camp; civilians captured in the act of resistance occupied a second one. There had been no attempt to segregate the sexes, or even to ensure that the prisoners behaved themselves; if there hadn’t been an ingrained habit of discipline and a common enemy, the prisoners would have probably started to kill each other after the first day, or fallen into rule by strength.
Sergeant Oliver Pataki, senior prisoner by virtue of being one of the first humans to be captured, stared out over the camp and winced. It wasn't the best POW camp he'd ever seen, that was for sure; the aliens seemed almost indifferent to their comfort. They didn’t bother to provide more than basic foodstuffs and a constant stream of running water; the medical tent, where the injured had been placed in hopes that the medical staff could help them to recover, was the only covered place in the entire camp. The prisoners made their beds on the hard ground and planned, grimly, for an escape. Pataki hadn’t wanted to end up serving as the commander of the camp – in effect, the chief collaborator – but there had been no choice. The aliens had certainly never given him a choice, or even someone senior to take the burden away.
The thought nagged at his mind; where were the senior officers? The highest-ranking person in the camp was a Master Sergeant, but he was sure that all of the Captains or Colonels wouldn’t have been killed in the fighting, or maybe even a General or two. The aliens had definitely figured out human ranks and, once they’d captured a few hundred prisoners, had started to weed them out; senior officers, it seemed, went elsewhere, while the junior prisoners got dumped in the work camps and put to work.
I’m sure there’s a treaty against that, he thought, with a certain burst of amusement. It was illegal, under the Geneva Conventions, to put prisoners of war to work – or, if there was no choice, they had to be compensated for their work – but the aliens had never signed the treaty. They’d organised groups of men, each one chained up and shackled together, and marched them out of the camp and put them to work. In the week or two since the aliens had landed, Pataki and the remainder of the prisoners had dug graves, helped clear roads and airfields and countless other tasks that required manpower and little thinking. A handful of soldiers had tried to escape, only to be gunned down by the aliens, who had then left their bodies outside the camp as a warning. The warning hadn’t passed unheeded; Pataki had learned that if they escaped, they had to make certain of it…or they would die.
He’d started the Escape Committee the day after being captured, and had ensured that everyone who entered the camp was thoroughly debriefed by his people, but none of the news was good. The aliens had simply rounded up everyone with a weapon and thrown them into the camps. If they’d arrested most of Texas, he’d thought at the time, they'd have to almost wrap the entire state in barbed wire, but if they were merely keeping guns off the streets…they’d put a crimp in any resistance right there. The civilians who’d been added to the camps had told them about the destroyed churches and the ongoing fighting, but it seemed that Texas wouldn’t be liberating itself anytime soon. The aliens could move forces from place to place far faster than the insurgents could react…and, if they were pushed out of a given area, they would simply call in a strike from orbit and pulverise the resistance fighters. The more he thought about it, the more he suspected that the aliens would, eventually, secure an uneasy peace.
Bastards, he thought, as he started to pace the camp. He’d started to organise games and exercises to keep everyone as healthy as possible, but the longer they stayed in the camp, the weaker they became; they just weren’t getting enough food. He wasn't sure if the aliens were simply working them all to death, or if they didn’t understand the problem; he’d tried to talk to them, but most of the guards didn’t seem to speak English. It was another security measure and, he had to admit, a fiendishly simple one; if they couldn’t talk to their guards, they couldn’t try to win friends. The guards couldn’t talk to them to learn that humans were…well, human…and they couldn’t talk the guards into joining them. There could be hundreds, or thousands, of frustrated democrats among the aliens…and they couldn’t make contact with them!
A whistle blew and he, tiredly, started to walk over to the gates. The aliens had
a fairly simple set-up, compared to one of the camps he’d seen while on deployment, but it was backed up by an absolute willingness to kill anyone trying to escape. Some of the SF troops swore that they could get over the wire if the power was cut, but unless the aliens lost their night-vision goggles, they’d just be picked off while still on the wire. Digging a tunnel wasn't possible; they didn’t have anywhere to hide the soil, or even conceal the tunnel entrance. It was a neat little trap…and, so far, all of his escape plans depended on being on the other side of the wire. That wasn't exactly helpful.
The alien who stood at the gate was one of their senior officers, as far as they could tell. Most of the alien soldiers wore their body armour, which several soldiers had sworn could turn aside a shot from an M16, although Pataki had seen several die when they’d been shot through the head, but those that went without the head covering always had a tattoo on their foreheads. This one had the most elaborate tattoo he’d ever seen, a strange spiralling pattern that seemed to cover half of the forehead.
“You are ordered to form one hundred of your people,” the alien said, shortly. They were rarely interested in talking about anything else, even the weather. They hadn’t even bothered to interrogate the prisoners. “Their services are required.”
Pataki nodded, hating himself. They’d tried, at first, to refuse…and the aliens had simply cut off the food supply. Their total indifference had been worse than any hatred, in a way; the aliens would have made use of them had they lived, but it wouldn’t have bothered them if the humans had died. He’d been shot at by insurgents who had screamed their hatred as they had fired, but the aliens were worse…and competent, at that. They had their boot firmly on Texas’s collective neck and showed no inclination to remove it.
“Come on,” he ordered, rounding up the men. He’d had little choice, but to sort them all into groups, despite some muttering about collaboration from the younger men. The aliens hadn’t cared who they’d rounded up either; there were infantrymen, Marines, National Guardsmen and civilians. He’d planned the groups so that there would always be several people who knew Texas with them, just in case there was an opportunity to make a break for it, but so far it hadn’t worked. “I’ll come with you as well.”
The alien guards, silent as ever, escorted them out of the camp. They shackled the humans together and then marched them towards a line of human trucks, driven by other humans. Pataki wondered if he was looking at the first collaborators when he realised that the aliens had thoughtfully handcuffed the drivers to their steeling wheels, just in case they got any ideas about escape. Besides, even if they had broken free, the civilian prisoners had told him that the aliens had a total monopoly on transport. They shot at all human vehicles on sight. The prisoners were escorted into the vehicles, which started off down the road, escorted by a line of alien infantry vehicles.
“Must be serious,” someone commented. A handful of others agreed loudly, shouting insults towards the aliens, who ignored them. It wasn't easy to get an insult across to the aliens if they didn’t understand English. “They’ve got a handful of their tanks escorting us.”
Pataki said nothing. He was too busy trying to see as much as he could of the outside world. There was much more to Texas than just the cities; there were hundreds of towns and villages scattered throughout the countryside. Some of them looked intact and inhabited, others looked deserted and looted and still others looked as if the aliens had used them for target practice. A handful of shots rang out as they passed through a deserted village; the alien tanks returned fire with enthusiasm, but didn’t stop to dismount and root out the insurgents. It didn’t look like a good sign.
Thunder run, he thought grimly. A new series of thunderclaps burst out in the distance. The poor village had just been hammered from orbit. If there were any survivors, they were probably stunned beyond recovery and completely shell-shocked. They don’t have to care about the little people.
Their destination, it seemed, was a fair-sized town, one that had once probably held ten thousand people, maybe more. He might have recognised it if he’d seen it intact, but between the aliens and its defenders – soldiers or civilian resistance – there was very little left of the original shape. Bodies, burned-out vehicles and damaged buildings were everywhere. The scene was almost heart breaking; the chaos of the Middle East, or the Gaza Strip, brought to Smalltown, USA. The aliens ordered their drivers to stop and started to unload the prisoners, taking care not to get their chains tangled up and broken. Several prisoners had been injured when the chains had been tangled in the early days.
“Clear the area,” the alien leader said. “Dig a grave for the bodies, then start clearing the road and the buildings. Do not attempt to recover any weapons or other material.”
As if I’d had any such thoughts, Pataki thought, with a certain amount of bitter amusement. If his men had been armed and ready, he would have bet on them against the aliens, even with the tanks and attendant IFVs. A handful of Javelins or even a few RPGs would have really ruined the aliens’ day. Without the weapons and freedom, a handful of recovered weapons would do nothing, but get them all killed.
“Come on,” he said, tiredly. “We’d better get to work.”
Judging from the condition of the bodies, the fighting hadn’t been more than a day or so ago. Moving in groups of five – chained together enough to make walking difficult and running impossible – they went through the remainder of the buildings, recovering all of the bodies as they moved. Some of them were clearly those of men who’d sold their lives dearly in defending their homes, others were women and children who’d been caught up in the fighting. There looked to be fewer bodies than there should have been and Pataki found himself hoping that most of the townspeople had managed to escape. They finally recovered over two hundred bodies, thirty of them belonging to children too young to bear a weapon. The sight almost broke his resolve and he sat down heavily, unwilling to carry on, until he was helped to his feet by one of the others.
“I understand, boss,” he said. There was a stiff reassurance in his voice that almost made Pataki feel better. Almost. “We’ll get these bastards yet, so don’t go and die on us yet.”
“Thanks a bunch,” Pataki said, sourly, but allowed himself to be talked back to work. “At least they’re letting us dig a grave for these poor bastards.”
Or maybe it was the smell, he thought, as they finished filling the grave and started to shovel soil over the bodies. He had warned that they didn’t dare say any prayers, not where the aliens might hear, but instead, he thought the words in his head and hoped that God would understand. The others thought their own prayers in their own way, hoping that someone, somewhere, would hear and understand. The townspeople hadn’t deserved to die like that. The aliens gave them a small pause to eat and drink, and try to forget the bodies, before pushing them over towards the remains of the buildings again. It was time to clear the roads.
“You got to figure,” Sergeant Waterford said, from his position. Pataki didn’t want to talk, but what else could they do to avoid thinking about what they’re doing? “Why do they care about burying the bodies and clearing the roads?”
“They probably want to avoid stinking the place out again,” Pataki offered, as he shovelled aside the remains of a house that had been struck by a missile. It had detonated inside and burned out the building, including any bodies, but most of the walls had remained intact. The aliens probably intended to flatten the whole village and build one of their own in its place. “They burned the bodies in Austin and made the entire place smell.”
“You’d think they’d know better than that,” Waterford said. “Or maybe their bodies don’t burn smelly, but burn sweet perfume, or…”
“Maybe,” Pataki said. It was a reminder that they were held captive by aliens, not strangely-shaped humans. They might do something completely irrational in the perfect confidence that it made sense. “Or…”
The streak of light caught him completely by
surprise. The missile – he recognised it at once as a Javelin antitank missile – streaked across from the countryside and slammed right into one of the alien tanks, which went up in a spectacular fireball. A second alien tank, trying to get into firing position, was hit as well; Pataki saw the turret come off as the missile exploded inside the tank. The third managed to get a hail of machine gun fire off towards the source of the missiles before the newcomers picked it off as well.
“Get down,” he shouted, suddenly remembering where they were. They were caught right in the middle of a firefight – and completely unarmed and defenceless. The resistance, if it was the resistance, had to kill the aliens before they could scream for help. He threw himself to the hard ground as machine guns and automatic rifles joined the firing, bombarding the alien position heavily and sending two of the trucks up in flames. He spared a thought for the drivers, both of whom were probably dead, but there was no time to think. More rockets were coming down, bombarding the alien positions, and he felt a burst of hot pain as a piece of shrapnel sliced his cheek in passing. “Stay down…”
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