SODIUM:4 Gravity

by Arseneault, Stephen

  Trees on the island out to 5 kilometers burst into flames while those out to 75 kilometers in front of the blast were flattened. The warheads were effective at the eight kilometer distance due to the use of a shaped-charge type of explosion.

  I quickly flipped our GAF and headed back into battle. The fireball had consumed 29 of the alien fighters and disabled a dozen more. The destroyer was down in the waters of Port Hardy bay. A full third of the amphibious assault force lay still on the shores near Port McNeill.

  I maneuvered towards two incoming fighters and Randy made short work of them with our coil guns. I then dove hard towards the disabled alien destroyer while Randy launched four Drillers. We again took out another fighter that attempted to intervene.

  As we circled and fired at advancing fighters the work of the Drillers soon became evident. A bright flash consumed the alien destroyer when the reactor was breached. The area was soon covered in the familiar green fog as the remains of the alien destroyer dissolved and sank into the bay.

  Cheers went up at Command as two other destroyers met with similar fates. But the cheers were short lived as alien forces were now on the ground. We steered through a wave of fighters firing our coil guns and gravity pulses as we flew back towards the kill zone around Seattle.

  With the destroyer dead the alien ground forces turned their skimmers westward towards the Canadian mainland. They were now heading towards the industrial centers of Calgary and Edmonton. Raven counted 87 alien fighters circling ever eastward to assist in their assault.

  I again flipped hard and pushed the throttle full. There were a dozen damaged alien fighters on the ground near the blast zone and their utility robots were sure to be fast at work bringing them back to operational status. One by one I flew near the damaged fighters allowing Randy to finish the job the cruise missiles had begun.

  With our sensor feeds back in full operation I began to scan the waters north of Port Hardy for the sub-sea forces. They had either gone deep or were moving at an extremely fast pace away from the area. Raven signaled Command and soon had the readouts from the Canadian and American armed forces sonobuoys.

  On the tactical holo-screens commercial sea traffic in the area showed as white blips. Green symbols indicated nearby American forces of a cruiser and a fast attack submarine and Canadian forces of a Coast Guard cutter. Again, there were no signs of the alien submariners.

  With the damaged alien fighters annihilated, I put in a request to Command to go after the remaining alien forces in our area. The request was denied. I then asked to remain in recon mode shadowing the alien ground force and was once again denied. Our orders were to return to Seattle.

  As we cruised safely back into the Seattle kill zone our tactical screen again lit up with five green blips heading towards the alien forces. Five more cruise missiles had been launched at our enemy.

  I was saddened at the thought of innocent civilians in the area being sacrificed when a more precise strike could be accomplished with our Defenders. But, I was making judgments from the information I had and I could only guess that it was in some way incomplete. We again watched helplessly as the invaders continued their advance.

  Raven identified the cruise missiles as having ten kilo-ton neutron warheads. They were tactical weapons designed to destroy everything within a confined area. Two alien fighters soon broke ranks and moved on the advancing nukes. They knew how to detect them.

  Within seconds the five missiles were knocked from the air. Four fell harmlessly to the ground while the fifth detonated clearing out a heavily forested area in a circular pattern of two to three kilometers in diameter. The two alien fighters fell from the sky smoldering as they impacted the ground and were soon covered in the green fog.

  I again requested permission to attack the alien army and was again denied. Our sensors had detected 6,244 skimmers in the alien force now being escorted by 85 fighters. I had sudden visions of some of the training scenarios we had gone through back in the Defender simulators in boot camp. Fighting the ground forces from a Defender had been some of my favorites.

  The invaders had soon crossed the coastal mountains and were moving across the plains, several hundred kilometers north of Whistler. Calgary and Edmonton each had two heavy coil guns and numerous light guns. They each had a squad of four Defenders at their disposal as well as their conventional forces. They were heavily out-gunned by the attacking force.

  Word soon came in of other battles raging across the globe. The alien battleship and nearly 600 fighters had settled in the waters of Tsushima Island in the Sea of Japan. The island had quickly fallen after the alien battleship had released its armies. More than 60,000 skimmers and an untold number of subsurface craft had departed from the hangar bays of the mammoth ship. All were said to be heading for the Japanese mainland.

  Two destroyers and 722 fighters had settled in the South China Sea as a battle for the Philippines was underway. A cruiser accompanied by 677 fighters had taken up position in Hervey Bay just north of Brisbane Australia. To the northwest a destroyer and 276 fighters had overtaken Sri Lanka and were headed north towards India.

  Another destroyer and 342 fighters took position in the northern region of the Red sea. Two destroyers had landed in the Caspian and Black Seas, each commanding several hundred fighters. A cruiser, two destroyers and nearly 2,000 fighters had landed off Malta in the Mediterranean Sea. Sicily had fallen within minutes.

  The remaining cruiser and another two destroyers landed and overtook French Guiana and were moving southward along the north Brazilian coast with 1,544 fighters in tow. The final two destroyers along with four carriers and 4,122 fighters splashed down in the middle of the Pacific with their final whereabouts unknown.

  The invaders made a point of avoiding our most heavily defended cities. Our conventional forces were early in the process of receiving upgrades to their fighting equipment. By Earth standards they were better equipped than any force Man had ever known, but they had no real defense against the gravity weapons of the squids.

  A single platoon had received the new BGS suit that I was wearing. I checked for their whereabouts on the command screens and took note that they were deployed around Washington, D.C. I soon grew frustrated when I did not see a strategy forming up to attack the alien ground force near Seattle.

  I again requested that command allow us to attack the aliens headed for Calgary... again I was denied. Raven then remarked that there were pleas going out on the public airwaves for someone to come to the aid of Calgary. It was all I could stand.

  In the field of battle the squadron commander had the authority to take direct charge of their squadron if they felt the need. It would come at a high price if countermanding a direct order. I felt the ends justified the means. I directed two Defenders to keep watch over Seattle while the remaining Seattle squads followed me into battle on the plains below Banff. The order was given over loud objections from Command.

  I pushed the throttle to full. In less than a minute we were engaged with the alien fighter force. I rolled as Randy fired and Raven manipulated our shield. Two alien fighters were quickly cut in half. Our team then launched half of our remaining Drillers and my tactical holo-screen was soon full of blips moving about like a thick swarm of gnats.

  Command screamed for our return, but those screams fell on deaf ears. Until... alerts began to flash on our Seattle Defense screen. The submariner alien force had begun an invasion while we were off chasing the ground force. I felt sick to my stomach as I ordered an immediate return to defend Seattle. I had countermanded direct orders and abandoned my post.

  In the time it had taken us to return the port of Seattle was in shambles. Ships were ablaze and sinking in the sound and along the docks. As I flew in and began to target the alien ground forces, a large high-rise in the downtown district toppled over onto the expressway. Smoke was beginning to fill the skyline as a ground war ensued. Our armed forces fought fiercely but the overwhelming advantage of the alien gravity weapons m
owed them down.

  An initial count of 3,126 alien skimmers had emerged from the waters of Puget Sound and immediately began destroying the docks and naval resources that were stationed there. They were knocking down or flattening everything in their path.

  I swooped low and slow and Randy began to target and annihilate the skimmers on his tactical screen one by one. I then turned south heading for the industrial district and Harbor Island. Flames shot high from the factories and warehouses. I identified a pod of five skimmers and headed directly for them.

  As Randy took aim our sensors went haywire and the tactical screens went white. The aliens had some type of jamming gear making our sensors ineffective. We were now limited to video for identification and aiming. Our fighting ability had been reduced dramatically.

  I yelled at Shepard and Raven to dig deep and find a way to overcome the jamming. I then turned to Randy with the statement that visual targeting was all we had. I would get him as close as possible and he would have to make the best of it.

  The alien forces spread slowly outward from Puget Sound destroying everything in their path. It was like a cancerous plague devouring the city one block at a time. We destroyed one skimmer after another, but their numbers were too great. Seattle was falling.

  Shepard then came back with a call. She had identified three alien vessels out in the Sound that were emanating the jamming signals. I banked hard and pushed the throttle forward. Within seconds the jamming pods were eliminated and our small Defender fleet once again began the task of killing squids.

  To our dismay the remaining skimmers turned and headed back to the protection of the Sound. I followed a pack of three as they submerged firing a full gravity pulse into their midst. The water beside them shot immediately downward and then rose in a high column as if a giant cannonball had been dropped.

  I then began feverishly pounding the waters of Puget Sound with pulse after pulse. Raven took note of debris surfacing from destruction of several more of the alien skimmers but it was soon evident that the amphibious force had gone.

  Most of Seattle's waterfront was in flames or flattened and millions of dead fish were now floating on the surface of Puget Sound. We had lost two Defenders in battle to close-in fire and had confirmed kills of 178 alien skimmers.

  Estimates soon came from Command that more than 300,000 souls had likely perished. Gone too was much of the manufacturing base and nearly all of the shipping abilities of the city which fed into much of the American northwest.

  We again took up a defensive position over the city. My commander came online on a private channel. My decision to take command on my own would be dealt with at a later date. We were at war and every soldier was needed. Seattle had taken a horrendous hit.

  But I was not to concern myself now for decisions I had made. There was much fighting yet to be done. Commander Jacobs went on to offer that if it was any consolation, our attack had slowed the alien ground forces enough that Calgary had received reinforcements before their arrival. The battle was ongoing and Calgary as a whole would not fare well. My actions were a wash and had likely saved as many lives in Calgary as were lost in Seattle.

  Reports were trickling in from around the globe. The Philippines had been devastated. Alien fighters were reported circling about mopping up any remaining survivors. The islanders put up a good fight, but the forces against them were overwhelming.

  The force that landed in Hervey Bay in Australia had turned north along the coast destroying town after town. Gladstone, Mackay and Townsville had been wiped from the map and Cairns was under siege and would fall within the hour.

  This war was not like most wars of the past. Throughout history there had been battles where complete cities were razed to the ground, every stone of every wall knocked down and every inhabitant enslaved or killed. But, those battles were the exception and not the rule. The spoils of enslavement had always been greater than those of annihilation.

  The squids took no prisoners and destroyed everything they came to that had been touched by Man. The inhabitants of each of those cities were dead, the cities completely destroyed. Their histories had come to an abrupt and complete end.

  In Japan the fighting had been fierce. The squids came ashore on Tsushima Island, overwhelming the local forces and then spreading southward. Japan's southwestern Islands had fallen quickly and the squid force had moved on to the southern Japanese mainland.

  Sasebo, Karatsu, Omura and Nagasaki had been crushed. The force at Fukuoka had been divided into three fronts. The first swept upward along the north shore, the second was cutting a wide swath across the center and the third moved deliberately southward, annihilating everything in its path. The squids were relentless and complete in their destruction.

  When observing each of these battles I had the urge to fly immediately to the aid of those under attack, but I had learned a hard lesson about why we follow orders, even if we don't agree with them at the time. In the fog of war the mind is left to fill in holes with speculative thoughts. Sometimes those thoughts are clouded by emotions that lead to bad decisions.

  I was not the first human to fall prey to the emotional minefield that we all walk through during wartime. But I had been lucky that my transgression had not caused more harm than good. Seattle had survived. While the waterfronts had been devastated, the rest of the city was now hard at work with rescues and repairs.

  I continued to scan the battle maps for information on how the war was going. Time after time the news was coming back as not in our favor. It was only the first day of fighting and our casualties were already in the millions.

  I selected the Indian peninsula tactical screen and observed that the attacking forces had moved from Sri Lanka onto the mainland of India and up the eastern coast. Again, laying waste to everything in their path.

  The forces that landed in the Black and Caspian Seas had combined into one and were busy flattening the great wheat fields of the Russian plains. I suddenly had the bad feeling that the aliens were now targeting our largely unprotected food supplies.

  I flipped from map to map and quickly came to the conclusion that we were in deeper trouble than I had imagined. The aliens would soon control the oceans which would eliminate our collecting of fish stocks which fed one quarter of our populations. They were destroying the wheat fields in Russia and the agricultural plains in Brazil.

  I wondered if their next targets would include the breadbasket of North America. We had food stockpiled in the cities but it would only feed the masses for a number of months. If this was the new alien strategy they would not have to attack our strongholds. They would just wait us out as mass starvation set in.

  Again the emotions of wartime crept into my thoughts. I asked my commander for orders and was told to hold my position. I passed on my observations of our food supplies being attacked and was told that Command was already fully aware. I looked around at my crew and received looks of apprehension. We were losing the war for Earth.

  Chapter 9

  When the war moved into its second day we were being pushed back in the fight for Earth on all fronts except one. The battle for Italy was largely at a standstill. I pored over tactical screens and soon found the reason why. A single platoon of European soldiers, wearing BGS suits identical to mine, were stopping the aliens on every attack. The wearer of the suit could activate the skin at-will, making the less powerful weapons of the alien skimmers ineffective.

  I had contemplated the suit’s capabilities only to come to the conclusion that it would not be very useful during battle. When active you could travel through walls or enemy vehicles, but you had no way to stop or maneuver. If the suit was made active and you headed downward into the Earth you would not be able to halt your progress. You would drift endlessly through the ground until the power-pack failed and you became ensconced in rock or roasted in molten lava.

  To resolve the issue our engineers had come up with a micro BHD that attached to the knuckles of the suit glove. The first p
icture that popped into my mind was one of flying around like a superhero with one arm outstretched culminating in a balled fist. I wondered if the BHD enabled BGS came with a cape.

  The truth was not far from fiction. The assault platoon of BGS soldiers had discovered that the micro BHD also made for a formidable weapon. If the gravity pulse gun these troops carried was unable to stop the alien forces they could count on the destructive power of the BHD. They only needed to make contact to unleash its power.

  While the advent of the new BGS was good news, we continued to be pushed back on the remaining battlefronts. With the battle of the Philippines over the alien forces there had swept southward into Indonesia while the Australian force moved north into Papua New Guinea.

  The Japanese attack force moved up the island to take Hiroshima and Kochi. The conventional forces of the Japanese Army were slowing the progress of the alien assault, but it was still moving forward. With every city lost so went its manufacturing, so went its transportation, so went its contributions to the civilizations of the world.

  With the great Russian wheat fields in ruin the combined alien force of the Black and Caspian Seas had turned south across Kazakhstan. This was still largely an unpopulated area and the Tacticians were having fits trying to discern the strategy behind the move. The aliens continued to destroy anything of man as they went.

  The long day fell to night and the fighting continued around the globe. News soon came that the alien battleship at Tsushima Island had fallen prey to a single Driller. The South Korean forces had launched hundreds of stealth Drillers towards Tsushima and one of them had found its mark.

  The Japanese were in the process of fielding two squads of BGS troops who would be busy wreaking havoc amongst the invading ground forces. Their only hope of survival lay with the new BGS as the invading force would otherwise finish the task that it had begun.

  In the nearby battle of Alberta, Calgary had finally succumbed to the attacking force which had then moved on towards Edmonton. Again, I requested to fly to their aid, but was again denied. It was like watching some stranger assaulting your neighbor while you were not allowed to intervene. I had quickly learned that war was not for the weak of heart or mind and that sometimes you had to fight every instinct you might have, because someone else up the chain of command supposedly knew better.