They’d already prepared a bonfire and a stake, almost like something out of one of the Salem Witch Trials. The humans who had been at the kitchen watched, their faces betraying nothing, as Joshua was hauled out and marched over to the stake. The guards lashed him to the stake and stepped back, one of them producing a small lighter-like device and bending down to the wood. Judging from the odd smell, the wood had been treated somehow to allow it to burn faster and hotter…
“I commend my soul to God,” Joshua said. He didn’t know why he’d said it. It just seemed like the right thing to say. The crowd, growing larger all the time, watched him, perhaps wondering what he would say next. He wanted to pray, but somehow all the prayers he had known had deserted him, even the alien prayers. His mind was calm, composed…and accepting. He was going to die. “You bastards, burn in hell.”
The alien clicked on the lighter…
And then there was a shattering explosion from the other side of the kitchen.
Chapter Thirty-One
The most effective leaders of companies in transition are the quiet, unassuming people whose inner wiring is such that the worst circumstances bring out their best. They're unflappable; they're ready to die if they have to. But you can trust that, when bad things are happening, they will become clearheaded and focused.
-Jim Collins
The report on the President’s desk had taken nearly two weeks to compose and, by then, was probably partly out of date. Compiled by a team of Beltway Bandits, who had been feeling the pinch as the economy collapsed, it was a grand survey of the entire United States and the results of the alien invasion. It didn’t make pleasant reading. The aliens had, deliberately or otherwise, interfered with an economic system that had worked fairly well for years…and, in doing so, had brought most of the world to its knees. The United States might well be on the verge of being defeated – completely. That had never happened in history, not since the Revolutionary War; the destruction of the White House during the War of 1812 had been a minor pinprick.
Now, however…the aliens were carefully hacking the remainder of the United States apart. They were targeting everywhere, but one case was particularly bad. They’d picked off a handful of bridges across the Hudson River and virtually cut New England off from New York. The net result was mass starvation, despite careful rationing and an evacuation program that had relocated hundreds of thousands of people. If it continued, the population would soon become so desperate that they would convert to any religion, even Satanism, just to be fed. The report had suggested that defeatism was actually growing in parts of the country, despite the daily reports of atrocities from the Red Zone in Texas and the Middle East.
Worse, almost all of the food coming into the northeast corridor, where nearly two-thirds of the population lived, including Washington, came by truck. The aliens, as they had figured out more of the American system, had started to pick off additional vital bridges and interchanges in Pennsylvania, as well as a handful of trucks, picked almost at random. The cumulative effect, the report suggested, was that vast sections of the population would be facing starvation – and a complete social collapse – fairly soon. The stockpiles of food and supplies were running low…and, worse, there was almost no oil coming in from outside. The US could, and did, pump up some from within its borders, but even so, getting it somewhere was proving difficult…
Worst of all, the alien occupation of the Middle East gave them massive clout with the remainder of the world. Sure, they were fighting an insurgency that made the Iraqi insurgency look like nothing, but they were holding the oil wells and even starting to pump out more oil. There were countries, everywhere, that needed that oil and would be willing to sign an agreement with the devil to get it. Judging from some of the reports and rumours drifting around the world, the Japanese were within days of signing an accord with the aliens, and they would only be the first. The President was surprised that Europe hadn’t gone under already, although the reports from the various embassies suggested that it was just a matter of time. The aliens were learning how to manipulate the human economy…and, in doing so, had caught the entire world in a vice.
The report actually became grimmer when handling the longer-term issues. The American – and thus the global - banking system had effectively collapsed. The restrictions the President and other world leaders had put on it before the aliens arrived had helped to disguise it, but the truth was that thousands of international loans were never going to be paid back, let alone internal loans. The destruction of the satellites had started a chain reaction that had brought down dozens of companies, including some that had seemed invincible, and even that was only the beginning. The American economy was in ruins…and nothing, it seemed, could halt the process.
He scowled and took another sip of his coffee. They were trying, but would anything be enough? The new depression made the Great Depression look like nothing, and yet…people were trying to pull through. There were thousands of men and women being encouraged to go work on the farms – supplies of vital farming equipment had been disrupted as well – and others who had signed up with the army or various recovery projects, but would it be enough. The little patches of America where law and order had been destroyed, or had become the provenance of survivalists or militias, were only disrupting recovery…
The President placed his head in his hands. There seemed to be no way out of the trap, nothing, but surrender…and see what terms the aliens intended to offer the remains of the United States. He doubted that they would be kind.
***
General Herald - Justin Michael Herald – didn’t fit the popular image of a General, Paul decided, after watching him as the President called the meeting to order. Herald looked more like a slightly underweight version of Dilbert, rather than a hard-charging cigar-chomping soldier, but perhaps that was to be expected. As the foremost expert in biological warfare in America, Herald was the commanding officer of the US Army Chemical and Biological Defence Command, a unit so secretive that even Paul had found it hard to obtain any real data, until the invasion had begun. The prospect, however small, of an alien bio-threat had concentrated a few minds and Herald had been given the task of ensuring that any such threat was neutralised before it became a serious problem.
Paul listened absently as the President ran through the handful of preliminary details. Herald had, apparently, told the Congressional Committee that if there was any trace of a bio-threat from the aliens, it would be serious if it only infected one human before being discovered. He’d been blunt about it, to staffers and congressmen who’d only learned about biological weapons from movies, blunt enough that he had more than his fair share of enemies on the Hill. The prospect had been unlikely, he’d assured them, but if it did happen, it would be disastrous.
“As you know,” Herald began, for the benefit of those who didn’t, “all captured alien bodies were recovered as rapidly as possible, frozen and transported to a variety of centres throughout the country, coordinated with the CDC and a handful of other institutions. The live aliens might have been kept at a separate facility, but we had a strong input into the design of the complex, which was originally intended for possible Typhoid Mary’s. It is impossible to be one hundred percent certain, but I can now state that it is probably impossible for any of their diseases to make the leap into humanity and cause an epidemic.”
The President, who was hearing that for the first time, frowned. “How certain are you of that?”
“It is difficult to be absolutely sure,” Herald admitted. “However, it seems that the aliens lived in a fairly closed environment, one where diseases were generally isolated and controlled, if not wiped out, and the net result is that our tormentors are a fairly healthy lot. Regardless, their internal biology is very different from ours and something intended to attack their systems would probably be unable to get a hold on ours. We have attempted to actually cross-transfer cells from their bodies” – and, Paul knew, a series of experiments that wou
ld sicken anyone who heard about them cold – “and so far we have had absolutely no success.”
“And so they cannot affect us,” Senator Ovitz snapped. The Texan eyed the President and then Herald as if they were personally responsible for everything that had happened to Texas. Senator Ovitz had more power than an average Senator…and, with his state under occupation, had been the loudest voice demanding action. “Can we affect them?”
Herald didn’t seem to notice the tone. “The results suggest that any War of the Worlds scenario is unlikely,” he said. “We conducted a series of tests on live alien cells, taken from the captives, and again, nothing we have seems to take hold.”
“But...damn it all,” Senator Ovitz thundered. “You’re supposed to be constructing new viruses to use against the enemies of the United States! Can’t you come up with something that can infect the aliens?”
There was a brief outburst of chatter from around the table, which ended when the President lifted a hand. “The brief of my department,” Herald informed Senator Ovitz, in a frosty tone, “is to develop defences against biological attack. At times, the difference between a defence capability and an attack capability is actually almost non-existent. In order to discover how best to prevent the spread of bio-weapons, we need to study the diseases directly, which means that to all intents and purposes, we have an attack capability.”
He peered at Senator Ovitz through his spectacles. “Biological warfare is not straightforward,” he continued. “Despite the belief of Hollywood scriptwriters, it is very difficult to come up with the required mixture of lethality and timing that are the hallmark of a successful bio-weapon. The more…unpleasant a disease is, the shorter the timescale between infection, symptoms and death. Ebola, to use only one example from the movies, has a tendency to show symptoms too quickly. The victim seeks medical help, whereupon the disease is recognised and countermeasures begun.”
The President leaned forward, interested. “If that’s the case,” he said, “why do most of the scenarios I saw when I became President show a massive outbreak across the United States?”
Herald had the grace to look slightly abashed. “It was anticipated that the political leadership wouldn’t be willing to take action until it was already too late,” he admitted, ignoring Senator Ovitz’s snort. “If a case was discovered in Washington, it would be necessary to seal off Washington completely…and probably several other cities as well, while shutting down air transport and everything else. It would be hard for the political leadership to act like Jack Ryan and take the heat for overreacting if it was a false alarm. Worse, the ideal biological warfare attack would be focused on several Patient Zeros and, therefore, would defeat any blockade.”
He paused. “But we’re getting away from the point,” he continued. “We don’t have a sample of any alien disease to experiment with. Even if we did have one, we wouldn’t know what we were doing, at least not at first. And, if we did come up with a usable bio-weapon, we couldn’t get it to all of the aliens at once. In short, we’ll keep researching, but I doubt that we’ll find a biological angle of attack.”
Deborah spoke into the silence. “And you can’t modify something of ours to attack them?”
“No,” Herald said, flatly. “It’s a completely different biological system. Oh, we may discover that something of ours isn’t good for them, but the odds are against finding a magic bullet.”
“Perhaps that’s not a bad thing,” the President said. “I would not care to be faced with the choice between deploying a bio-weapon – and committing genocide – and losing the war.”
“With all due respect, Mr President,” Senator Ovitz said, “my people are being crushed under the alien boot. They do not have time for your fancy northern morality.”
“We’re doing what we can for them,” the President said. “General?”
General Hastings scowled. “We have actually managed to take advantage of the alien distraction – and their invasion of the Middle East – and use the time to slip in a few thousand more Special Forces, mainly Green Berets, Force Recon and a handful of lower-key units. Intelligence types have been infiltrating the alien-controlled cities and towns and have been reporting back to us on how the aliens are conducting themselves. In short, Mr President, we’re making it much harder for them to conduct further offensive operations against us.”
His voice darkened. “But not, I fear, impossible,” he added. “The reports were unconfirmed at first, but it appears likely that the aliens intend to launch a northwards thrust, perhaps into Arkansas or Mississippi. Our forces, which have been gathering there, are not in any state to resist such an attack, even without the addition of space-based weapons. They may believe that attacking us will force us to stop supporting the insurgents, or they may simply intend to add to their human resources…”
The President winced. “Are you sure that they’re going to expand?”
“We believe that that is what they have in mind, yes,” General Hastings said. “The intelligence and signals units are unable to actually read the alien transmissions, but there has been a steady increase in transmissions from bases they have established in north-east Texas. They may be intending a punch at our bases, perhaps a spoiling attack, or they may have another advance in mind.”
“Mr President, we need to consider the nuclear option,” Deborah said, firmly. “If we cannot stop the aliens from expanding, we have to look at other possibilities.”
Senator Ovitz nodded in agreement. “They have to be stopped,” he said. “If that means turning a section of America to glass…”
“There are American citizens under any nuclear blast,” the President snapped. Paul could hear the pain in his voice. “Do you want to butcher them like the aliens did the Pope and the Vatican?”
“What choice do we have?” Senator Ovitz demanded. “General, can the army stop them if they come at you?”
General Hastings’s face was unreadable. “Delay them, yes,” he said. His voice soured. “Stop them…no. They have too many advantages. I’m seriously considering suggesting that we only delay them and prepare the ground for a much larger insurgency.”
“And would nukes add to our chances of stopping them?”
“Not easily,” Paul said, sparing General Hastings. “The aliens can – and do – shoot down every missile we launch at them. The mass use of every known ICBM left on Earth would probably not destroy the Red Zone. Long-range fire from artillery has also been shot down in flight. We would have to hide the weapons along the expected lines of advance…”
“But we could use them,” Senator Ovitz said. “We could put an end to their threat…”
“The issue is closed,” the President snapped, firmly. “Colonel James, what progress has been made with the SSTO program?”
“Useless,” Senator Ovitz muttered, just loudly enough to be heard.
Paul privately agreed – partly – but kept that thought to himself. “The program for constructing our own fleet of SSTO craft has been accelerated, now that we have a working model of our own,” he said. “We hope that within two to three months we will have around thirty craft that we can deploy – if we can get rid of the alien orbiting systems. As long as they control space, we cannot actually get anything of our own into orbit – and they will be very aware that as long as they control space, their ultimate victory is assured.”
“So, son,” Senator Ovitz said, “are you saying that it’s time to haul up the white flag?”
“Hardly,” Paul said. “The one great advantage of the war is that a lot of research programs into advanced weapons and concepts have been kicked into high gear. We may not be able to duplicate the alien laser weapons, not yet, but we have other weapons of our own now. The latest models of lasers can actually harm the alien craft in orbit, although they cannot inflict significant damage in seconds. The alien parasites have too much armour to be easily taken out from the ground – and, of course, any missile boosting upwards from Earth is easy to dete
ct. We took down their space-based radar network in Operation Lone Star and forced them to use parasite ships in that role, but that means that we cannot take the network down again, not easily.”
He paused. “But we do have options,” he continued. “Give us three months and we might be able to convince the aliens that they’ve been in a fight.”
“Three months,” Senator Ovitz said, more thoughtfully. He looked over at the world map, showing the Red Zone in Texas and another, larger one, covering most of the Middle East. It would only be a matter of time before Israel fell and the aliens ruled from the Suez to the Pakistani border. They even had diplomats from the Middle East talking to their counterparts from Europe and the rest of the world. Quite a few African nations were on the verge of surrendering. “Can we hold out that long?”
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