Charger the Soldier

by Lea Tassie

  Germany steeled herself for the task ahead. Soldiers immediately began boarding planes. Weapons were checked and rechecked and, in the darkness, hundreds of heavy aircraft lifted into the air on course to America.

  It was almost dawn as the first of the German aircraft flew over America's Atlantic seaboard. There had been no response to their communications, which greatly concerned the German pilots. Entering America's air space might be seen as a provocation if they could not inform her of their intentions. As they flew over the eastern states, the soldiers looked down on burning, tormented lands below, a scene straight out of hell. Large twisting red masses rose up from the shores everywhere. Here and there, American jet fighters descended on those red masses, dropping bombs that seemed to have little effect on the alien foothold.

  One of the German pilots reported that contact had been made to those in command of the American offensive, and the fleet was now being directed to strategic locations throughout the States.

  As the German formation began splitting up and flying to assigned locations, escorted by American jet fighters, a look back at the masses of alien fortifications growing along the shorelines occasionally revealed small swirling vortices emanating from the red mass. Shooting skyward, they seemed to be aimed at low-flying jet fighters. Projections that looked like spinning saw blades attached to a gray snake-like arm occasionally sliced into a jet fighter, sending it spiraling to the ground in flames. One pilot ejected from his plane within view of the German soldiers and, as the pilot descended to the ground, an alien swarm massed beneath him, reached up and pulled the hapless pilot to the ground, tearing his body to shreds.

  There was no taking of prisoners in this fight, only utter annihilation.

  One squadron of German aircraft that had left from Asia and crossed the Pacific Ocean made its way south from Alaska, flying over what remained of Canada. The cities along the shores of this vast country lay smashed and broken. A peaceful country, Canada had been ill-prepared for the destruction that overwhelmed it. Huge tracts of land blackened and devoid of all life, bleak as a desert, stretched into the distance. Here and there, large alien red masses dotted the shorelines and seemed joined together, even at long distances, by moving tentacles or tree-like roots in the ground.

  As they flew over Canada, one of the heavy lift aircraft began having mechanical issues. These soon became serious, and the word was passed to commanders that this failing craft would soon plummet to the ground. They decided that another German plane would land with the disabled aircraft and that the two groups would dig in and hold their positions until an offloaded rescue group could return.

  Falling away from the main fleet, the two planes started their descent toward the ground. The pilots could see that landing would be easy. The ground everywhere was black and smooth and lifeless. The soldiers aboard the two planes were apprised of the situation and everyone moved fast, stowing gear and prepping weapons. Most of the soldiers spent a good portion of the remaining flight time fussing with the new biomechanical gear they wore, the backpack that contained all the ammunition and other gear. From the side of the pack hung a swing arm that allowed a soldier to quickly retrieve his weapon from the pack, and swing it to the firing position. This allowed the hands to be free when in travel. Nevertheless, the body armor received the most attention. Soldiers checked and rechecked the fit of the armor on soldiers next to them; no one wanted his armor to fail.

  The landing was relatively smooth and the two planes taxied to an area where they could park close together. Just before stopping, the stricken plane retracted its landing gear, dropping the craft directly to the ground and digging in. Soldiers quickly evacuated the planes and started setting up a defendable perimeter.

  The attack came almost at once.

  One of the root-like tentacles, partly buried in the blackened soil and partly exposed, like those the German pilots had seen from the air, was reported moving toward the small party. As it approached, motion and radar detectors sounded alarms, giving location and speed of the incoming alien attack. The root tentacle was advancing at a tremendous speed, well over two hundred miles per hour.

  Within moments the first gun was fired. The Germans started their defense with the new, light, long-range cannons, made of composite materials. These weapons were easy to set up and deploy, and were most effective in their ability to launch small nuclear artillery rounds over vast distances.

  Multiple mushroom clouds dotted the horizon, and still the alarms rang out as the aliens continued attacking. They seemed able to shift position at the last second, thus avoiding missiles fired at them.

  Now the second line of defense fired. Napalm rockets streaked across the sky, lighting the ground afire before the approaching chaos. A wall of intense flames rose skyward, seemingly blocking the path of the aliens but again, they simply shifted and kept on coming.

  The third line of defense, large generators aboard the two aircraft, surged to life. Blinding beams of intense laser light, based on research done by the inventor Nikola Tesla, shot from mobile ground units, mixed with smaller particle rail guns. These had some effect. Portions of the root like tentacle broke off. The advancing alien hesitated momentarily, but pressed on.

  When the splintering alien mass was within yards of the dug-in German forces, the soldiers loosed a brutal crossfire of steel-tipped armor-piercing gunfire. Now close to the humans, the mass emitted its killing mist. Soldiers scrambled to put on gas masks.

  Swarms of alien bodies erupted from the tunnels created by the tree-like root tentacles. Hideous solid masses moving inside liquid body parts struck forward onto the German troops, slicing the soldiers to pieces. An advancing tentacle rose from the ground and struck the broken aircraft, piercing easily through the armor and shattering the plane. Seeing this, the second, still-intact aircraft began moving, and troops not dead or dying scrambled for the hatches in an attempt to escape the carnage.

  The attempt was in vain. In front of the aircraft accelerating away from combat, the ground rippled and the blackened land gave way as a large chasm opened. Thousands of whirling vortexes rose up, projecting long gray snake-like objects with spinning saw blades that tore into and shredded the rolling aircraft and its occupants, converting it into exploding fragments. The fleeing aircraft disintegrated.

  Unbelievably, in spite of all the carnage and chaos, one soldier survived. Damaged but alive, a young woman with pale, blonde hair, blue eyes, and the rank of sergeant lay motionless for several hours. A deathlike unconsciousness had saved Group Sergeant Hanna Massey's life.

  >>>

  Hanna Massey awoke to silence, blurred vision, and the smell of blood. When her head cleared, she lifted her body on one elbow and began looking around. The battlefield was strewn with friends and comrades she had served with, all torn, broken, and scattered about like a child's discarded toys.

  But Hanna was a well-trained and disciplined German light infantry soldier who had spent time in several war-torn countries, trying to help those struggling for a better life. Careful examination of her body showed that she was not hurt badly. She found a few scrapes, bruises and a black eye, and the pounding in her head meant she might have a concussion. Rubbing her temples, she scanned the area for a radio operator. The radios the soldiers carried in their biomechanical suits had a limited range but she hoped to find some resistance fighters close by.

  To her dismay, all the personnel were ripped apart so badly that, when she did find a radio operator, the equipment looked nearly as bad as the body. Sitting down and pulling her knees up close to her chest, Hanna sat motionless, trying to work out a course of action.

  Hours passed and the sun set. Hanna's headache had abated and she realized that she could not stay where she was. She pulled herself up, strapped gear and ammunition to her body, and started to walk toward the red base from which the alien tentacle had attacked. She had not gone far when she stumbled over something in the dark. Something odd.

  Her flashlight revealed t
he remains of a partially severed alien body lying in the black dirt. It seemed to still be alive. Hanna immediately aimed her rifle at what she thought was its head and was only a second from pulling the trigger when she noticed a glimmering light coming from the side of the creature's head-like structure.

  Where she had focused her rifle seemed to be a solid mass with multiple gold-colored eyes, or what might be eyes. However, the point that glimmered was on the left side of its skull, faintly blinking. "How about that," Hanna muttered to herself in German, "They use electricity, or some kind of light."

  The squirming thing seemed to realize that Hanna was speaking. This sent the creature into a convulsion as it tried to defend what was left of its body by forming itself into a weapon.

  "Hell no!" Sergeant Massey snarled in the only English expression she knew, and pulled the trigger. The skull shattered, parts of it scattering across the blackened soil. There in the dark, the small glimmering light still blinked. She knelt down beside it and, retrieving a small towel from her pack, wrapped it up and placed it in one of the pockets of her combat gear.

  She traveled beside a wide river, keeping to the trees on its banks but occasionally emerging to use her binoculars. The river would take her to the sea, where she hoped to get a closer look at the aliens. After a week of eating carefully rationed packs of food and sleeping under the trees, daylight found her again exposed on an open plain of blackened soil in what had once been farmland outside the Canadian city of Vancouver.

  Hanna knew she was close now. She took refuge in a ruined building and peered through binoculars at the decimated city, noting that red alien masses were slowly enveloping the tall buildings. Now and then, one of the buildings disintegrated into rubble under the heavy mass, and Hanna could just make out the movement of aliens scurrying around.

  The day was hot, made hotter by the lack of any greenery around her hiding place, but as she traveled, Hanna had been forming a plan to gather intelligence about these aliens. She decided to wait until nightfall, then move in closer and try to photograph and record what was going on in the alien encampment.

  Evening found her finishing a small tin of food, then poking and turning the bit of glimmering light that she carried in the towel, trying to decipher its purpose. It was clearly neither mechanical nor biological in nature. All she could determine was that it was alien. This conclusion made her smile, not a common expression in her world. Stuffing away her gear and prepping her weapons, Hanna rose from her hiding place and moved out, aiming toward the city. She stopped a few yards from the damaged building and froze. Slowly she turned her head, scanning the area all around her. Her mind was racing, her heart pounding wildly, her hands cold with fear.

  How could she have missed this? She was a fool, and a dead fool at that. Not even trying to raise her weapon, Hanna's shoulders sagged as she realized she was standing in what looked like an alien nesting site. Dug deep into the black dirt all around her were heaps of alien bodies, occasionally moving, but slowly. Her only thought was to get to the grenade in her pack; she would take as many of them with her as she could. Unslinging the pack from her back, she reached into the pocket for the grenade but instead pulled out the towel with the glimmering light. She again froze, her mind searching. She had been in that building all day. Why hadn't they killed her sooner? The light blinked on.

  How had she gotten this close to the alien base? Her thoughts calmed and her mind began working. "The aliens sensed the aircraft that crashed. They knew our positions."

  The light must mean something.

  Retrieving it from the towel, Hanna held it in her hands and began looking at the aliens. They didn't have glimmering lights on their heads, and not one was attacking her. It was obvious that they could see her. Some even stopped what appeared to be feeding to stare at her, but none moved toward her. Hanna stared directly at an alien that had its arms plunged deep into the ground. A slurping, crunching noise made her turn away. Slowly, air refilled her lungs as her heart slowed its rapid pace. Her mind was clear now.

  Gathering her gear and using all her faculties to attempt logical thought, Hanna clutched the glimmering light object tightly in her hand and began walking forward through the darkness, passing pit after pit of aliens slithering in their holes, until she reached the outskirts of the city. None of the aliens paid any attention to her.

  "What if the glimmering light fails? What if its power source stops? What then?" Increasing her pace, she made her way to the most densely packed area of the red mass. What she found there stunned her.

  From a highway overpass facing the center of the city, several gigantic gaping maws seemed to be ingesting everything brought to them. Like huge, hungry mouths, they gulped down everything from stones to trees and animals, even dead humans and cars. Debris of all kinds was being fed to them through a conveyor of liquid slime. The sounds were horrendous: grinding and crunching mixed with screeching of metal and the occasional scream of a still living thing.

  Clenching her teeth, Hanna resisted the urge to be sick. She imagined killing these aliens and that thought settled her stomach. It made no sense for these aliens to consume everything on the planet, but apparently produce nothing from it. So what were they doing?

  Far out at sea, submarines were firing nuclear weapons at the mass buildup that formed along the beaches. The results shocked Hanna. The missiles impacted relatively close to her, but she suffered no ill effects. The red mass seemed to liquefy and accept the impact, like a gigantic sponge absorbing a bullet. Then the force of the explosion seemed to be directed downward, into the earth, leaving the red mass unaffected.

  Hanna spent all night and most of the following day wandering through the city, observing everything that was happening. She found her way to the ocean and stood on the shore, looking back at the devastation and felt a powerful sorrow fill her mind. She began walking south along the beach, heading toward the United States.

  After several days, Hanna's face was dirty from the burnt soil blowing loosely in the breeze and sticking to the tears sometimes sliding down her cheeks. She could hardly believe it when she chanced upon a stretch of land not yet consumed by the alien horde. Along the west coast of Washington state, she found herself walking among tall green trees and thick ferns, hardly even realizing that she had made it across the border.

  It was odd that nothing was damaged here, she thought, her mind clearing again. There had to be a reason. Sitting on a park bench, Hanna pulled some food from her pack and allowed herself to admire the beauty of the place. Hours later, it dawned on her that she had heard no sounds except the waves rolling pebbles on the beach. No birds singing, no dogs barking, no small rodents scurrying through the leaves, nothing.

  Another thought struck her. It couldn't be possible. But what if it was? During World War II, in Germany, the Nazis had safe places high in the Austrian Alps to hide and rest from the rigors of war. Was this such a place? Quickly she reached into her pack for the glimmering light.

  It was still blinking. Satisfied, Hanna set out, very carefully, to explore what was possibly a safe haven for the aliens.

  Chapter 10 Conflict behind the lines

  Pam A'Ochay found that driving to work today was more stressful than usual. Her mornings had always begun with a crowded traffic commute but now, after the invasion, abandoned cars jammed the roads. She needed to get to the office urgently. Late last night, she'd learned of the German chancellor's television appearance in Europe from the few working internet providers still operating for the media. That something so important to the American people wasn't being televised here seemed simply impossible. When she reached the office, she didn't try to park in her usual spot; cars littered parking lots as much as they did the roads.

  Pam hurried across the lot, sparing a fleeting thought for her past, so different from her life now. She'd grown up as the typical, innocent, small-town girl-next-door, wanting to be an actor and be funny, maybe like Carol Burnett. But after putting that dream aside in
favor of marriage to Dieter and her first child, she decided that a steady job, like news casting, would be a better career. She had moved up the corporate ladder quickly and now was media director for one of America's largest news networks.

  She hurried through the revolving door and stopped by the staff room off the lobby to get a coffee from the vending machine. She didn't see, attached to the ceiling above her head, a small gray stain that moved almost imperceptibly. The stain slowly formed itself into something that looked like a cross between a bat and a spider, and extruded a sharp spine-like object from its back. This was one of the small spy organisms roaming the war zone, relaying biological data from kills back to the alien command bases. Pam was about to be this one's next victim. Slowly and with great purpose, the gray wraith began sliding across the ceiling and closing the gap between its menacing blade and Pam's body.

  While Pam's attention was focused on retrieving change from her purse, the wraith lowered itself from the ceiling on a glue-like film toward her shoulder, just inches now from the kill. Pam found the final quarter she needed and inserted it into the coffee machine. As the mechanics of the vending machine started up, the little killer spy stopped, seemingly confused and disoriented. As the coffee brewing continued, the electrical frequency generated from this device, purely by chance, began causing the wraith to deform. Reaching for the filled cup, Pam leaned forward just as the little gray spy fell to the ground and degraded into a fully liquid state. Pam stepped on it with her red high-heeled shoes on her way to the elevators.

  Unaware of how lucky she'd been, Pam got out at the tenth floor, tossed the empty coffee cup into a nearby trash can, and walked briskly down the familiar halls to the media president's office.

  Here she stopped to reinforce her stance by reminding herself of a brief news item from December 2015. Though that was fifteen years ago now, the fact that the media had limited the report to a mere twenty seconds of air time still infuriated her. Muslim extremists had attacked a bus in Kenya, looking to kill Christians. The Muslims on the bus had protected the Christians, saying, 'Shoot all of us or none of us.'