“And their deployments?”
“The Australians know as much as anyone else about how the aliens work,” Francis said. “They should have made preparations for resisting an alien landing, but…if they land in enough force, they can probably take Australia completely within a few weeks. They don’t have a large enough army to stand off the aliens.”
“And so another state is lost,” the President said. “Once they control Australia, they can bring other nations into line and keep consolidating their control. Japan…Japan is effectively on their side now, while China is just trying to avoid an uprising.”
“They got hurt worse than we did when the aliens attacked,” Francis said. “Their economy is a shambles and the chaos from the Korean border isn’t helping. If their government falls completely, they’re fragile enough to go through a second warlord period…and that will remove them from the balance sheet. By the time they recover, the aliens will probably hold the rest of the world.”
“Not if we can help it,” the President said. There was a note of renewed determination in his voice. Francis welcomed it, even though he knew it wouldn’t last. The President studied the map, noting the red shade that covered Texas, the Middle East and North Africa. The aliens were having real problems with the Pakistani border, but Islamabad seemed to have lost control completely, leaving the disposition of their nukes a total mystery. Francis had even heard a rumour that the Indians were considering a strike against the Pakistani nukes before they could fall into the hands of fanatics who might turn them against India, even with the aliens breathing down their necks.
The President’s gaze fell on China. “Is there no way we can get in touch with them?”
“We can try, but it’s hard to know what their government controls now,” Francis admitted. He allowed a bitter note to seep into his voice. “If we don’t stop the aliens, that’s what we might look like, in a few months. If the aliens don’t blow up the world and call it a draw, of course.”
Chapter Forty-One
True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others, at whatever cost.
-Arthur Ashe
The aliens, wisely, had finally imposed a formal curfew on the humans in Austin, but a smart person could avoid being picked up, provided that he was careful. Brent hadn’t lied when he’d claimed to have walked a further distance, but even he had to admit that this time he would be facing more dangerous opponents, if they knew that he was out there. The last time had been facing a group of terrorists who’d given up the chase after a few days, on a mission that had never become public knowledge, but now…now he had to get out of the Red Zone completely.
He’d planned carefully. The aliens might have the city sealed, but they hadn’t cut off all traffic, not when they needed to move things out of the city. There was a small army of truckers working for them, some semi-willingly, others with their hands cuffed to the steering wheels, and they were granted permission to move in and out of the city, provided their papers were cleared. They were, for the most part, tough men and women and he would have liked to have had them in the open resistance forces, but their current work was too important. The aliens had them moving supplies from their new cities into Austin and shipping back empty containers, one of which now contained his supplies and rucksack.
“You’d better keep well hidden,” the trucker said, his face a nervous mask. Brent didn’t know his name – it was safer that way – but he’d been tested before and found to be a strong link. He’d actually helped smuggle a few dozen people out of the city before, to one of the refugee camps in the countryside, but this was something different. He could earn one hell of a reward from the aliens if he turned Brent in to them. “The bastards see you, you’re dead.”
The container – and indeed the entire vehicle - had been rigged, carefully, but Brent still felt exposed…and naked. The one thing he couldn’t take with him was an obvious weapon, not through the checkpoint, although he had placed a pistol in the bottom of his sack. If the aliens found him, they might let him through…as long as they thought he was just some idiot trying to get to the refugee camps. If he were carrying a weapon, it would mark him as a soldier…and a heretic. A handful of other resistance fighters had been charged with betraying their new religion and burned in public, pour encourager les autres. He had no intention of going the same way.
He felt the dull rumble of the diesel engines as the truck moved down towards the checkpoint. He listened carefully as the aliens gave the truck a quick examination, but they couldn’t go through all of them, not when they were leaving the city. They’d caught quite a few truckers trying to smuggle weapons into the city, but they weren't as careful for departing vehicles, not always. If he’d been betrayed…there was a brief exchange between the driver and the aliens, too low for him to make out the words, and then the truck went back into gear, heading out through the cleared roads, westwards towards the alien city.
“You can come out now,” the driver hissed. Brent pulled himself out of the container and crawled forward to the cab. He could see the lights of the lead truck in the distance, but little else; the countryside was as dark and silent as the grave. It was unnatural, as if all of humanity had vanished, to be replaced by a world where monsters ruled the night, but there was no time to care. “They won’t bother us until it’s too late.”
He pointed a finger at the roof. “They’re watching us from up there,” he warned. “You sure you want to do this?”
Brent looked upwards. The sky seemed alive, the twinkling light of alien craft high overhead…and, to the west, an unnatural glow lighting up the skies. “You want a honest answer to that?” He asked. “I don’t think there’s much choice now. What would they do if they found me when we reached their city?”
He looked back towards the silent black mass of Austin. “I’ll take my leave now,” he said, as he worked briefly on the door. “Keep your mouth shut and no one will notice.”
The driver slowed the vehicle and then stopped, as if he was answering a call of nature. . “Good luck,” he said. “God bless America!”
Brent barely heard him as he leapt from the vehicle, into the darkness. It had been almost impossible to get a clear view of what was waiting for him, but as he landed neatly on the tarmac, he realised that he’d timed it perfectly. The jump had been dangerous, but if the driver had stopped for long, it would have been disastrous. The aliens, watching from high above, might not see him, but they would see the halt. They would start to wonder why.
He took a moment to take stock, watching as the remaining trucks sped past into the darkness, and took a quick compass reading. He knew, roughly, where he was, but he would still have to walk to the first safe area. He had been tempted to make directly for the border, but as Joshua had pointed out, correctly, it was a long walk. The information had to get to someone who could use it quickly, and that meant taking the risk of travelling to Fort Hood. He hadn’t told Joshua that. It would only have upset him.
The darkness swallowed him up as he started the walk. Fort Hood was still holding out, if a bitter underground struggle constituted holding out, and the aliens had sealed the area. There were over twenty thousand American soldiers in the area, according to the internet, and the alien attempts to dig them out had, so far, failed completely. Brent was a little surprised the aliens hadn’t simply resorted to nukes, or more KEWs, but given the size of Fort Hood, it would take hundreds of nukes to make a real impact. They had bombed the base once and barely dented the actual danger, as far as they were concerned.
But he had to make sure that they knew he was coming first. The Special Forces had been busy; they’d set up a whole series of hidden fibre-optic cables all over the Red Zone, using them to stay in touch and try to coordinate their operations. Brent didn’t trust them completely, not when the aliens could have found some – either through coincidence or prisoner interrogation - and that meant that the
y could have been subverted, but there was no choice. If he went blindly into Fort Hood, he would be lucky to find anyone…and if he did, they might shoot him on sight. That would be embarrassing. The data had been sent to his little resistance cell through the Internet – another detail he had kept from Joshua, although that was mainly from habit rather than any operation security procedure, as by now the aliens were well aware of the Internet – but it might not be easy to find the link.
If I can’t find it, I might have to make the walk after all, he thought, as he found an isolated path that ran towards the north. He didn’t dare go down and use the roads; if the aliens didn’t spot him, he might blunder into a IED and be blown up by his own side. There was supposed to be a hide around somewhere, one used by the soldiers who prowled the night and hunted aliens, but if they'd found it…
Dawn was starting to rise when he stumbled across the hide. Someone had been very clever and hidden it from view; the aliens would have to be very lucky to find it, even with directions. He found the entrance, checked it carefully for booby-traps, and opened the hatch. The small electronic panel confronting him lit up and pasted a question for him; which President got a blowjob in the Oval Office? Brent chuckled, clicked on Clinton, and sighed in relief as the bomb defused itself, allowing him to enter the hide. The aliens, even if they got so far, wouldn’t know the answer…although he knew that collaborators would, if the aliens trusted them to hunt their own people.
Now, he thought, where are you?
The hide wasn't as sophisticated as some of the ones he’d seen in Iraq. It was barely more than a hole in the ground, hidden from view, with a tiny cache of food, supplies and a single terminal. He took a breath as he activated the terminal, placing his thumb against the screen and waiting for the scanner to confirm his identity, praying that it included his fingerprints in its memory. There had been times when details like that had been missed from terminals, screwing up entire operations or worse, and there was so much that could go wrong. The terminal bleeped, granting access, and opened up for him, revealing a link that stretched all the way back to Washington. He’d seen enough of the systems to believe that they would continue to work, even with Washington’s destruction.
His hands danced quickly across the keyboard, confirming his identity and sending a message to Fort Hood. The main buildings would have been destroyed, but that wouldn’t worry the soldiers, not the ones hiding out on the grounds. The trick would be to see if he could get there…and if they would be expecting him. It took nearly an hour before a reply arrived, confirming that they could meet him, but he’d have to make it there himself. He checked the location quickly, made a mental note of a route that would take him there by a roundabout route, and settled back into the hide. He’d have to sleep during the day and then make the rest of the journey by night.
He’d wondered if one of the other resistance units would come to the hide, but none came during the day, allowing him to get several hours of uninterrupted sleep. He awoke as darkness started to fall, ate a small MRE quickly, and then sealed off the hide again before starting the long walk. He was tempted to visit some of the smaller towns on his route, but the aliens would be active there, or they would have driven out the human citizens. He’d picked up the reports about them clearing towns by force, but it had taken Joshua to put two and two together and figure out why; the aliens didn’t just want an invasion, they wanted settlement as well. The towns they’d cleared were probably being demolished already.
Should just nuke you, you bastards, he thought. The aliens hadn’t, as far as he knew, reached the Pantex Plant in the north of Texas, but if they knew that the only nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly plant was in their grasp, they would certainly try to grab it. The Internet had been silent on just what had happened to the plant, but his imagination filled in all sorts of possibilities, from alien occupation to the plant rigged to blow…to the aliens having bombed it and destroyed the United State’s capability to make new nukes. He hoped that the equipment had been moved, but that wouldn’t be an easy task, certainly not with the alien control of space. Their unearthly glow was still lighting up the skies to the southwest, a reminder of the cities they were building, which meant that they would soon be trying to expand again.
The thought distracted him from his walk as he skirted all human or alien contact, walking northwards. The aliens had been balked from expanding further into America, but that wouldn’t deter them forever…and there were plenty of weaker countries out there. They’d landed in the Middle East, which couldn’t put up much of a fight against their capabilities, and that gave them access to most of Africa. There were plenty of people in Africa who would have welcomed their arrival, if only because it might actually give them some safety. The Janjaweed couldn’t stop the aliens for a moment…and if they were duly slaughtered, as they would be against any halfway decent military force, the aliens would make one hell of a lot of friends.
…And then the aliens wouldn’t need the United States anymore.
He saw a set of lights down on the road and detoured around them, spying the alien patrol from a distance, wishing for a pair of night vision goggles. The aliens seemed to be more on alert – this close to Fort Hood, they were probably terrified of IEDs and the human soldiers who were covering them – and operating on a random schedule, but there was no way to be sure. He didn’t need to be noticed, at least not by them, but if they saw him, they would certainly want to know what he was doing in the area. The Internet had claimed that thousands of refugees had tried to make it to Fort Hood, or out of the Red Zone, and by now he had dumped his ID card. He wasn't going to be stopped now.
A flash of brilliant white light lit up the sky, followed by a rising explosion and a burst of shooting. It sounded as if the alien patrol had run into trouble. Fighting down the urge to go see what had happened, Brent picked himself up and ran, running as fast as he could over the road and into the sealed area, avoiding the aliens as they moved to respond to the attack. Fort Hood was so large that they couldn’t hope to guard the entire border and, if the reports were to be trusted, they weren’t even trying. He should have passed their forces now, heading into the trees and thickets of the training area, scrambling over the remains of a fence as if the devil himself was after him. Lights and sounds flickered through the night, the noise of alien helicopters – giving Fort Hood a wide berth, he noticed – sending shivers down his spine. He was used to fighting in an urban environment; it had been too long since he’d been to Fort Hood…
“That’s far enough,” a voice drawled, seemingly out of nowhere. A red dot, barely visible, settled on his chest. “Hands in the air, if you please, and don’t touch any weapons.”
Brent mentally kicked himself as he raised his hands. A moment later, three soldiers materialised out of nowhere, their weapons raised and covering him. He was impressed with the ambush, although hindsight told him that they’d simply been watching for anyone trying to get into the area with night-vision gear…and he’d been fairly obvious during that final sprint. A pair of strong arms searched him roughly, removing the pistol, his rucksack and a knife.
“All right,” the soldier growled. Brent was suddenly aware of just what sort of sight he presented. He could have taken one of them in a fight, but all of them? They had every right to be more than a little paranoid of strangers. “Who the hell are you?”
“SF34,” Brent said. He didn’t have to give out anything else, not yet. “Who the hell are you?”
“They told us to expect you,” the soldier said. He sounded a great deal friendlier now, but Brent was still very aware of the red dot, now dancing around his heart. “Who was the instructor in unarmed combat during your time at Fork Polk?”
Brent almost panicked. There were several possible answers. “Sergeant Corso,” he said, finally. The gruff man looked completely harmless…and had thrown soldiers twice his size around as if they were children. “He reported to Captain Harmon, who in turn…”
&n
bsp; “Ok, ok, we got you,” the soldier said. “Come on; we don’t have all day.”
Fort Hood’s interior felt…freer to Brent. It was certainly a far cry from Austin, where the insurgency had fought the aliens. Here, there were defensive positions everywhere, with tunnels and fallback positions carefully woven into the terrain, backed up by artillery and even a handful of tanks. The men – and a handful of women – looked as if they would never pass another inspection, but they were united by their determination to hold out indefinitely. They were proud of what they’d done, he saw, and he couldn’t blame them. The best the insurgency had done was bleed the aliens badly.
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