by Rick Partlow
"Back off, everyone!" she ordered, waving them back into the hallway. "On the ground."
While her troops took up prone positions about twenty meters back into the corridor, she paced off another ten meters past the last of them, then fell into the crouch facing the door. Racking her brains to recall her brief familiarization training with the old M-46 Individual Weapon, she adjusted the grenade launcher's sight and brought it to bear on the door.
With an expectant wince, she pulled the trigger.
She had vague ideas of going prone as the buttstock of her rifle kicked her in the shoulder, but before her body could react the hallway was filled with smoke and thunder. Shannon stood at the center of the storm of sound and heat, feeling the patter of low-velocity shrapnel off her ceramic stealth armor. Then it was past and the door was a dozen bits of twisted metal in a haze of smoke.
Shannon let her breath out in a hiss and advanced on the stairwell, not noticing the incredulous looks the men and women of her squad gave her as they rose to follow.
Quickly, they moved downward into the darkness.
***
Greg Jameson had just managed to drift off to sleep when the far-off rumble of an explosion brought him upright on his cot. Blinking in confusion, he stared at the bare, white walls of the storage room his captors had converted into a cell, automatically checking his watch and cursing as he realized it wasn't there.
The Invaders hadn't left him so much as a sharp edge with which to slit his wrists, and God knew, by now he was almost ready to try it. The only escape he'd been allowed in the month he'd been confined to the three meter by three meter room was one trip to the washroom every three hours---and, of course, the daily interrogation sessions. At first, he'd entertained thoughts of heroically resisting, defiantly refusing to answer their questions no matter what tortures they put him through, while he expertly plied them with questions and learned more about them than they did about him.
Unfortunately, his captors held no such romantic notions: he'd been unceremoniously dragged from his cell, injected with truth drugs and pumped like a cryogenic fuel tank for over three hours. Since that first session, the interrogations had become less regular and far less lengthy, but he still felt a perpetual stupor nagging at him from the lingering effects of the drugs, and his shirt was stained from the vomit that always accompanied his return to consciousness. And the most humiliating thing about the whole business was that he knew just as little now about his captors as he had when he was brought here.
They were humans---the ones in charge at least---and spoke with some kind of Eastern European accent, probably Russian, and that was it. The only time he saw them was during the interrogations, and then he was in no condition to ask questions. He couldn't even remember how much he'd revealed under the influence of the drugs. This was, he reflected bitterly, the lowest point in his life.
Jameson felt himself beginning to sag back onto his bed, the perpetual drowsiness beginning to take hold of him once again. He had almost decided to go back to sleep, convinced the noise had simply been the product of an incoherent nightmare, when the door to his makeshift cell was unceremoniously yanked open. Into the room burst a man---a man and not one of the blue-skinned things!---in a brown military uniform, his eyes clouded with fear, the ugly, angular lines of a small pistol in his right hand. He was an older man, with thinning hair and lines under his eyes, and seemed less imposing than he had when the President was under the drugs.
"You will come with me," he declared, grabbing Jameson by the arm and jerking him off the bed.
Being manhandled was something the President was not used to---he'd always been a big man, used to people steering clear of him, even as a child---and a month in captivity hadn't changed that. Suddenly, he wasn't President Greg Jameson anymore, or Captain Jameson, Fleet Marines, or even captive Greg Jameson---he was number eleven, quarterback Greg Jameson of the University of Florida fightin' Gators, and this asshole with a gun was some puke defensive back running a corner blitz.
With an incoherent roar, Jameson grabbed the man's gun hand and smashed the forearm down on his knee, snapping the bone with an audible crunch. The European uttered a high-pitched scream, the gun dropping from his suddenly-useless hand, but Jameson kept his grip on the man's arm, using it to spin him around and send him flying backward across the room. The uniformed man bounced off the far wall with a grunt of breathless pain and came right into the elbow that Jameson poised to smash across his temple. The European went down like a felled tree, his eyes rolled back into his head, while Jameson went for the pistol.
His heart was pounding and his head felt as if it were about to explode. The President struggled to stay conscious as he covered the fallen enemy with the weapon. The man didn't move, didn't even breathe. Jameson wondered if he'd killed him with the blow to the head, finally deciding that he hoped he had.
He took a second to check the pistol for any kind of safety, but it had none. It was a primitive design, made of metal stampings, with a concealed hammer. He pulled back the slide and a round popped out, clattering to the floor---the weapon had been chambered and ready to fire. Jameson fought back a fresh wave of dizziness at the knowledge of how close he'd come to death, then decided he'd better get out of the cell while he could.
Grasping the pistol tightly in both hands, he ducked out the open door and quickly scanned the corridor up and down. Nothing, not a soul. To the right was the entrance he'd been brought through, to the left the washroom---and the control room. Which way to go? He leaned back against the wall, trying to catch his breath, and listened. For a moment all he heard was the pounding of his heart, but then, so close it made him jump, there came the hollow, metallic echo of gunfire down the hallway to his right.
Gunfire! That meant someone was attacking the Invaders! Jameson limped cautiously down the corridor, keeping his right shoulder against the right-hand wall, pistol extended in front of him as he approached a bend in the hallway. This was it, he decided. Whatever was happening, he wouldn't go back to a cell---they'd have to kill him. He'd be damned if he would wither away strung out from drugs, locked in a box like a lab-rat.
The hoarse stutter of an automatic weapon came even closer this time, and the President abruptly realized that he wouldn't have to seek out the fight---it was coming to him. He glanced around quickly, searching for a doorway to take shelter in, but before he could move a step a pair of brown-uniformed soldiers burst around the corner, running headlong toward him. Gasping in panic, Jameson fell backwards onto his butt, bringing his captured weapon up in front of him as he saw that the two men were facing the other way---the way they'd come---firing ear-splitting submachinegun blasts at their unseen pursuers.
It had been over twenty years since Jameson had fired a gun, but apparently it was just like riding a bicycle because the gun seemed to point itself as he lined the sights on the first man's chest and squeezed the trigger. The gun's sharp report and bucking recoil took him by surprise, but he managed to keep it on line as he fired again and again, watching with an almost out-of-body detachment as the two men jerked under the impact of the bullets.
The President only stopped firing when the pistol's slide locked back empty, a haze of smoke and heat pouring from the chamber and obscuring the image of the two soldiers, turning them into surreal shadow-figures that spun silently to the floor. Jameson seemed to wake from a trance with a wave of gut-twisting horror, the red-hot weapon slipping slowly from his grasp to land next to him with a metallic thunk.
"Sweet Jesus," he murmured, his whole body trembling uncontrollably.
So shaken was Jameson that he almost didn't notice the black-armored troopers swarming around him until they grabbed his arms and pulled him to his feet. For a moment, the President tried to struggle, thinking his captors had retaken him, but then one of the armored figures pulled off its helmet and revealed the flaming red hair of a captivatingly beautiful young woman---none of the Invader humans had been female.
"Mr
. President," she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay---we're here to rescue you. I'm Lieutenant Stark, Fleet Intelligence."
"Thank God," Jameson sighed, finally feeling his breath return.
"Sir," Stark said, "we've got to get to the control room. Can you walk?"
"Walk?" He laughed with an almost giddy relief. "Hell, Lieutenant, I can run!"
***
Senator Daniel O'Keefe burst into the base infirmary bare-chested and barefoot, his trouser belt flapping around his waist, face twisted with horror at the sight that confronted him. Valerie, his only child, his whole life for the past two decades, lay motionless on an examination table, her dress stained with blood, her skin as pale and lifeless as a corpse.
"Oh, my God," he gasped, stopping in his tracks.
Slowly, the rest of the scene penetrated his stunned senses. Gathered around the table in a frenzy of feverish activity were three RSC medics, part of the small group which had remained at the base. Even as he watched, they were fixing the tube of an IV drip into Val's arm and placing a medical scanner over her swollen abdomen, their faces taut with anxiety.
"She just collapsed," Glen said, coming up behind him. "We were outside, talking, and she just collapsed."
"What's wrong with her?" O'Keefe demanded, stepping up to the medics. "What are you doing for her?"
"She's hemorrhaging," the woman administering the IV, snapped impatiently. "As soon as we find out where, we'll have to go in and stop it."
"Oh, Jesus," the medic examining the scanner readout murmured, shaking his head. He looked back up to his two colleagues. "It's the baby---it's coming prematurely...or trying to."
"But why is she bleeding?" O'Keefe wailed, fists clenching helplessly.
"High blood pressure, maybe," the medic shrugged, plunging into a supply cabinet, searching for an injection gun. "Doesn't matter---we can't close it off, so we're gonna have to get some coagulants into her."
"Can't you stop the labor?" Glen asked, amazed at how detached he felt from the situation.
"I could," the man grunted, concentrating on loading a drug vial into the injector, "if I had access to an Ob-Gyn clinic. But all we got here is emergency medical supplies, and those don't happen to include those kind of drugs." He got the vial loaded and injected the coagulant into Valerie's thigh with an angry pneumatic hiss.
"So what are you going to do?" O'Keefe wanted to know.
The medic finally looked up at the Senator, and the fear in his eyes nearly matched that in the older man's.
"Only one thing we can do, sir," he said with a sigh. "We're going to have to try to deliver the baby."
Chapter Twenty-Two
"Fortune favors the bold."---Virgil, the Aenid.
General Sergei Pavlovich Antonov sat in his chair and watched the world roll by beneath him.
My world, he thought, not for the first time. The beautiful blue planet that filled the observation room's giant transplas window was his to control, his to destroy if he so wished.
"What are you thinking, Sergei?" the naked woman beside him wondered.
Antonov turned to regard her stunning beauty. She was like a classical sculpture, a blond Venus manufactured for his pleasure by the scientists. He'd thought he might grow bored of her, like a child with a toy, but she learned so much so quickly.
"It is destiny, Yevgenia," he told her, using her, as he often did, as a sounding board for his thoughts. "How else could you explain it?"
"Explain what, my love?" she asked, floating at his shoulder in the weightlessness of the chamber, her fingers stroking his temples.
"All of this," he told her, waving a hand expansively, the sleeve of his robe billowing with the motion. "Just when things seemed irretrievably lost, when the Motherland lay in radioactive ruins and the whole world turned its hand against me, my one desperate hope of escape led me to the very source of the power to take it all back. And it is within my grasp, Yevgenia, my beautiful one." He stretched out a hand toward the viewport, as if he could take the world in his fist.
"It is only a matter of patience," he went on. "My technicians have assumed control of power and food production in all the major cities---within days, the people will be forced to come to us to survive. Already the city officials in three of the largest of their megopolises have begun to cooperate in exchange for food and supplies."
With a satisfied smile, he slipped an arm around his biomechanical consort and drew her into the chair with him, settling her on his lap.
"Yes, Yevgenia," he concluded, softly stroking her perfect skin, "there must be a God and he must be a Russian..."
"General Antonov!" the unwelcome voice came over the room's intercom with a palpable sense of urgency. "General Antonov, are you there?"
"Damn it!" The General punched the comm switch on his chair angrily, startling Yevgenia and sending her floating out of his lap. "I told you never to disturb me here, Pyotr!"
"I am sorry, General," the bridge officer stammered, "but it's the orbital-weapons control center...the place we are holding the Republic President."
"I am very well aware where we are holding the Republic pretender, Lieutenant Dubronov," Antonov growled. "What about it?"
"Sir, it's under attack!"
"What?!" Antonov exploded out of his chair, nearly impacting the chamber's padded roof before he caught himself. "Don't do anything!" he yelled at the intercom pickup, pushing off toward the door. "I'll be right down."
The command bridge of the Protectorate flagship was awash with confusion when General Antonov arrived, floating gracefully through the transport tube. The ship was equipped with a rotating habitat drum to provide simulated gravity for the crew quarters, but the bridge was intentionally kept at zero-gee for tactical purposes.
"Silence!" Antonov roared, coming to a halt in the center of the control room. The buzz of activity came to an abrupt halt, as if a switch had been turned off, and all eyes turned immediately to the General. "Lieutenant Dubronov!" he snapped. "Report!"
"Yessir, General," the younger man barked---though younger was a relative thing with the original Russian crew: Dubronov was a hundred and five to Antonov's hundred and thirty, though thanks to the technology of the Great Machine he still seemed to be no older than his mid-twenties. "General Antonov, we received a transmission from Captain Constantinov at the satellite control center. He reported that they were under attack by motorized forces with missiles and small arms."
"Get him on the radio for me," Antonov ordered.
"We cannot, sir," the Lieutenant said, shaking his head, his face pale. "We lost contact with the base five minutes ago, and we apparently no longer have control of the weapons satellites."
"I am surrounded by incompetents!" Antonov roared, and Dubronov's face went pale as he anticipated one of the General's legendary rants.
"General Antonov!" One of the comtechs took his life in his hand by interrupting the General. Antonov swung around to glare at him menacingly, but the man went on hurriedly. "Sir, it is Colonel Podbyrin. His ship is approaching, requesting to dock with us."
"Podbyrin!" the General barked. "Good Lord, I'd nearly given up hope he would make it. Put him on screen."
"Yes, sir," the comtech said, eager to comply and get the General's focus off him.
The bridge's main screen lit up with the snowy, staticy image of Colonel Podbyrin, flashing in and out of existence with each moment.
"Dmitry Grigor’yevich!" the General boomed. "What the hell is wrong with your communications?"
"...eral Antonov," Podbyrin's image said between bursts of static. "...attack by....forces damaged....antenna...life support failing." The screen blacked out for a moment, then returned with amazing clarity, revealing Podbyrin's sweating, wrinkled visage. "Need to dock immediately!"
Then the image disappeared into a collage of snow and the comtech switched it off.
"His radio has stopped transmitting, sir," the comtech announced. "Your orders?"
"Allow him to d
ock," Antonov instructed, frowning deeply. "Have a security team detailed to the docking bay in case there is anything wrong."
"Sir," Lieutenant Dubronov asked with some hesitation. "About the satellite control center---do you wish me to land support troops?"
"Not yet," the General shook his head, sneering. "We cannot afford to lose any more troops--we are spread thin. We do not need the center anymore, since we have established orbital dominance." He sniffed, turned to the weapons officer. "Prepare a fusion missile for immediate launch."
***
"We're in like Flynn," Vinnie told Jason, shutting off the hologram simulation of Colonel Podbyrin. His sweat-covered face disappeared from the front screens, replaced by the looming mass of the enemy vessel. Sunlight glinted off the silver-metaled hull of the cylindrical Protectorate flagship, an elongated mass driver stretching along its spine.
"Ari," McKay spoke into the radio pickup in his helmet, "are your people secure?"
"We're tight, sir," came the reply.
"Launch the pods," McKay told Vinnie.
The Sergeant hit the control, and they all felt a sharp jolt as the boarding pods cut loose from the body of the ship, floating a few dozen meters away before their small rocket motors ignited.
On the screen, the egg-shaped grey shells streaked across their view, one of them heading up the portside toward the bridge, while the other preceded them into the yawning mouth of the docking bay. Vinnie turned up the magnification and they could see spacesuited maintenance workers within the bay scurrying for safety as the pod rocketed into the bay's inner wall, small braking thrusters in the nose igniting just short of the surface of the hull.
The combined impact of the tungsten-carbide nose of the pod and the heat of the chemical braking thrusters burst through the inner wall and melted an airtight seal around the nose of the vehicle. Vinnie hit a control and a video window appeared on the viewscreen, bringing them a picture from Ari Shamir's helmet cam.