We had a command meeting every Monday to plan the week’s training. Lucy had not attended any since our return from Earth so it was a shock when she showed up and acted like nothing happened on the fourth week.
“El, may I speak?” she asked, after the meeting was called to order.
“Of course.”
“Thanks. I have been very busy redoing all the videos so you can understand them; also it took a full week to decipher the code they used on the files. A very tough one with multiple floating algorithms that all floated at different speeds.” She looked to us all and saw we had no clue what she was talking about.
“Earth destroyed itself on purpose. They tried to send some humans out through the gates but both Houston and M-7 were soon overrun with MKs, so they set their own reactors to critical and destroyed all the gates. Why not ours? I found a short passage in one of the classified documents that mentioned the original Honor experiments were at the NORAD defense center because both of the Honors worked there. Apparently the original idea was to use it as some space defense weapon, but it was felt the theory wasn’t a weapon, but a means of travel—however NORAD was not seen as the best site. It was not really a function of space defense so it was moved to Houston to be part of space exploration, after both the original teams were lost. It was classified and tucked away and forgotten about.”
“How? Well never-mind,” El said.
“How can you forget? Simple, they had other gates that worked and drew all the attention. Like a deserted mine, people remember where it is for a few years then it slips from memory since it no longer has anything worth holding interest,” Lucy said.
“Now, let me show you the last days of Earth, as seen from the people left behind to push a couple buttons. This is the first day they went underground and the speaker is Captain Danny Levington. A wounded war hero, recuperating at NORAD.”
What she showed was a video of someone talking, but you could see that it was dubbed as the mouth didn’t quite match the words.
“Hey, this is Captain Levington. Just got word they are taking all the able bodied people and rallying them at Area 51, the secret special operations testing facility north of Vegas. They will try and hold the bugs there. That leaves sixteen of us disabled troops to hold down the fort. It isn’t as bad as it sounds. Everything is automated, the supplies come in and go out by robotic trucks. We just watch the skies. We no longer have any anti-missile sites left, just the big nukes. There were too many of them using captured aircraft.” It ended there.
“Turns out he was in charge. This is him again a month later,” Lucy said.
“Hi, me again, got word the bugs are winning. Col Samuals stopped by to hand deliver the new launch codes and programming co-ordinates. We have to monitor a special freq for an authorization signal. If it comes, it means it will pretty much be the end, God help us.”
“Next is a private Denson. As best I can guess it is a month later, he didn’t date it.”
“The Captain grabbed some grenades and a pistol and took all but us four out front to meet them. We blew the doors after they left like he said to, and have E-2 blocked. He will call from there when he wants in.”
“Several days later. Same guy,” she said.
“Damn, Captain was never heard from and we just received the launch authorization from Washington. I don’t know what to do—we have six hours to get the codes set in and wait for the countdown. I’m thinking they have the bugs cornered and finally going to finish them.”
“Seven hours later,” Lucy said.
“We launched on time and reported all away. That was when the bastards told us we were destroying cities, with people in them, overseas, and we would soon be destroyed as well. Mutual destruction was felt preferable to being eaten alive. Not sure I’d want either way. Impacts start in twenty minutes.”
“This next is the last—I think it was almost a year later. The guy has a beard.”
“Private Hamilton here, nothing has been heard anywhere since impact except the chittering of the damn bugs by the main gates. We lost the cameras, just have the mikes. We discussed it and set the bots to move things to keep them functional. I figure we got enough spare parts to last five or six thousand years. I doubt any bugs will ever get in but we can’t get out either. The last missile was a near miss on us—it hit the city and rocked the mountain. We drew lots, I will be the last. I will make sure the others are dead before I dose myself up. I don’t know why I’m recording it but the Captain said to make records of important things. I guess our deaths are important, at least to me. Goodnight cruel world.”
“That’s it. There are others from spots in-between but you get the picture,” she said. “Oh, wait, the last camera images.”
On screen we saw a car driving down the road away from the city then, just a brilliant flash and you actually saw the shock-wave approach, then nothing. For all purposes the world ended.
“The area we were in was not the NORAD center, it was located below it. The elevator that was blown went up to where the launch control and tracking screens were. The bugs made it in there through ventilation systems or something so the privates blew it too as they moved down to the warehouse. Also there are long tunnels between the outer doors and the blown ones we saw inside. No map was included.”
“Damn, to know you pulled the trigger on your whole world, shit, I don’t think I could do that,” Tici said.
El said, “Nor I. I suspect that was why that Captain went out to fight with the rest. They knew they would die, but they also knew they couldn’t push the buttons either. What a decision to have to make.”
To say the mood was foul was being kind. We now had a clue about what we were really up against, and it was frightening, not exciting.
“I have a lot more, but that is the key information. They lost a major battle that lasted for weeks at the Area 51 site. From what I read, it was the final stand for the United States. There was simply nothing left but a few cities scattered around and from the presidential bunker under Washington, the last word was most of Europe was gone, a few places in the coldest parts were still alive, but the bugs were using cars and trucks with heaters to get to them as well. Seems the cold slows them, not stops them. Oh, they aren’t radiation-proof, it just takes longer to kill one than it does humans. Questions?”
She fielded half a dozen then Tally asked one—she so seldom spoke you forgot she was around. “Did you find what they tried to use on them?”
“Yes, I did. Wish I had encouraging news but I don’t. Killing them amounts to blowing them up, burning them down, shooting or stabbing them. Earth tried mutated viruses, bacteria, pesticides, even common things like vitamin extracts and sugar and various common chemicals. Some slowed them down, but none stopped them.”
“Did they leave or eat each other?” El asked.
“Looks like they might have left; not enough carcasses around to know for sure. All the dead ones I saw were from shots or fights. The ones seen by the main door were from the Captain’s group. We couldn’t get a real look at Earth to determine much more.”
“Weapons?” I asked.
“Chain-guns were effective until the ammo ran out. Same with about everything else. Rockets, missiles, rifles, all were fine until the ammo ran out then they were simply overrun. There were just far too many of them,” Lucy said.
I had an idea or two of something that might not run out, but I wanted to mull on it awhile. I wasn’t a scientist, just a climber.
Lord P was given the information and was quite vexed we had no known defense.
We were not idle, we continued to train and Lucy took different groups to check the doors when there was time. We had seventeen in all and had searched six, counting Earth.
She said the swamp was in fact inhabited by an early human, almost Neanderthal, very low IQ, aggressive, no signs of tampering by the Earth people. Stone and wood tools.
There was one planet: soft grass, trees, a few old buildings made of mud bricks,
no sign of recent habitation nor technology. Lucy took off in a chopper and after following a stream to another small town she beat feet back to the gate and sealed it. She found MK and human bodies. “Fresh, as in days old.”
“I saw humans run from the town as we flew over so they hadn’t been swarmed, maybe just an advance party. Want to see if we can capture one?”
That sent up a buzz. We all knew it would be up to El. She sat silent for a long time. “Okay, but I think we need some changes to our basic plan. I assume time is critical, I don’t want to go against millions, but I am willing to take on a few and see how they work.”
We spent the rest of the day, all night and into the wee hours of the morning, getting ideas and plans finalized.
The choppers were ready, the fort was ready, the troops were ready. I wasn’t really sure if I was.
We lined up and at the signal Tici ran through the gate with the skirmish troops. I was in the back with El and Loka. Lucy was helping push the chopper to the door. When word came back it was clear the chopper and the rest of the main troops went through. The second chopper was waiting at the gate.
Soon we were all though the door as support dollies hauled the fort sections in. The immediate area was clear so Tici held off and had the first chopper flying top cover. The area was clear as the second was readied. It flew off to the east and came back. It was clear to the objective area.
At that point Tici broke the line and had the troops advancing while the choppers hooked onto the fort panels neatly stacked up, and took off east. They were soon out of sight. Tici set a fast, but cautious pace as we moved east. El secured her link-pen and box and hid them in a rock pile. Lucy hid hers in a small grove of trees near the door after it turned back to ice. We pushed ten miles and Lucy had troops covering our tracks as we moved.
I don’t think anyone put up a fort faster. The winches helped a lot and it all came together in a hurry. Once it was up Lucy had someone unload boxes from the one chopper. She opened them up revealing 20MM cannons. She showed us the nasty spiked platforms and then mounted the guns on them, only two per side, but 1200 rounds of HE each—a lot of firepower. People on the walls could fire them remotely without exposing themselves, and reloads were possible, though a bit hard.
During the day we saw clothed people running around. They saw us, but none came near. From what I saw they looked very much like us but had a yellowish skin tone and slanted eyes.
The choppers sat outside the fort with a hundred guards and Tici. Their pilots slept in their seats. Lord P had been steadily increasing our troop strength but El didn’t want everyone wiped out so we brought two-hundred-fifty troops. One-hundred-fifty manned the walls and slept on the floors of the fort.
At daylight, after the troops were fed, Tici and El took choppers and went different directions. Lucy was in the one with El.
Two and a half hours went by and both were back. El called a conference and after we showed up she laid it out. “Twenty or twenty-five are located about forty miles northeast of here. I want to move the fort thirty miles closer and reset it. Lucy says the choppers are strong enough that they can hold the fort parts—fifteen troops inside and another twenty brave souls willing to ride on the fort platforms. That would give us seventy to assemble on the spot while the choppers haul more troops in.”
We moved, assembled and again we waited. This town had no humans running around—it had humans screaming—but nothing running around. We saw the MKs moving about the buildings and I worried the rest of the troops would not arrive in time to help. It seems the MKs were quite methodical. They were searching every home, every nook and cranny as they moved toward us sitting in our portable fort now just a bit over a mile away from their line.
El said, “I don’t know where they came from, but there are more than twenty in that town.”
The fort was ready, the choppers had brought in the last of the troops and were ready, and I guess we were ready again, as the last groups moved to form a perimeter around the choppers. Like before about a hundred guarded them.
The screams were causing us all to be jittery but El said there was nothing to be gained by trying to attack the town, wait. Like her I was sure our time to scream would come, and a quick glance over the top said I was probably right.
Lucy and Tici took a chopper on recon to the other side of the town and we heard hell breaking loose. When they came back and landed Lucy called the command group together. “Forget it, they are pulling in thousands by trucks and planes and a few spaceships to the other side of that town. They know we are here and are getting ready for an assault. El, I suggest the choppers start hauling as many back as we can. The rest will have to hold out until we can evacuate them. I’m glad we have a few platform sections left at the old base, it will help.”
I saw people scrambling to resupply the chopper and the second was airborne and out of sight as well, but the noise of the rockets or missiles and the chatter of that cannon was unmistakable. The other chopper was again airborne and flew off.
“They are trying to get as many of the transports coming in as they can, but we are on desperate grounds here,” Lucy said.
“Okay,” El said, “pull back as many as we can. Tici and Loka and Eldon, rear guard, keep the troops in the fort, remove as many of the others as you can. If the MKs get to the gate we go nowhere, we will not open it, we die here instead, clear?” She didn’t need to ask.
When the choppers came we packed twenty inside and Lucy even let some sit on the landing skids. Desperate times, desperate measures. Both were gone in minutes. We moved the remainder of the ammo boxes inside the fort and packed it full with the remainder of the troops from outside.
“Here they come!” someone screamed from the wall platform. Tici told us to get everyone organized, as people died or were wounded on the walls we needed to move replacements in.
“Fix Bayonets!” Tici screamed at the top of his lungs. He was on the wall. “20MM short bursts only, weapons free, fire at will.”
The chatter of the wall guns were sporadic. As soon as they fired the MKs moved back into town. “Damn,” Tici said. After I got up by him, bayonet finally fixed to a needler rifle I was assigned, he said, “Was hopping they would keep coming in a mindless charge. No such luck, they are planning. Only good thing is the two ships I saw were small transports and we destroyed them both.”
About that time a weird looking chopper rose from the other side of the village—not one of ours, and Tici said, “Shit!” He stood at the wall. “Get to your posts, no sense all of us being in the same spot.”
“All 20s that can see that chopper wait for my command to fire,” he said, as Loka and I each took a different wall. I hadn’t noticed but Tally hadn’t gone with El, she had the back wall, rifle in hand and a fear-filled smile on her face as she saw me. The enemy chopper started shooting bullets, everyone ducked but I heard a couple screams from someplace.
I saw a rocket trail shoot overhead and miss the area completely as Tici told the 20MMs to fire. The entire fort rocked as they chattered. The chopper sort of bounced as a couple explosive HE rounds hit it, then it disintegrated in a burst of fire and smoke and fell to the ground.
About that time I heard the deep whup, whup of more but it was our choppers returning with slung platforms. While all this was going on Tici told the gunners to reload the 20s.
That was the flaw in the system. To do it someone had to stand on the platform and lift the heavy drum top off, then hand load the shells into the firing bins. Fully exposed to anything the enemy had. Some were doing it and it looked like it was going well but one fell forward, off the platform and to the ground outside, dead. Another took his place and finished the job. Our first combat casualty had a nasty hole where his chest had been.
“Sniper, but from the look of it, very slow and only one,” the Lieutenant next to me said.
“That is a good thing?” I asked.
“If you’re not one of the ones it shoots.”
&n
bsp; Eighty more troops were hanging all over the two choppers as they hauled them back toward the gate. Tally was in one of them. Lucy was in another one, she assured us the first group was back through the gate. She’d be back as soon as possible.
The next hours were a blur as the MKs finally started making frontal assaults. They were packed twenty and thirty deep, no weapons that I saw, just ringing the fort. As they got close Tici finally told the 20s to fire. They were mowed down by the hundreds, and hundreds more came to replace them. I now knew what area 51 must have felt as their ammo depleted but the MKs just kept coming. All the 20s were empty and Tici had us all doing volley fire. So far it kept them at bay.
“Choose a target, steady your aim, fire! Reload, target, fire! Reload, aim, fire!” But they finally closed on us and Tici said, “Fire at will!” He raised his reloaded ten gauge shotgun and fired off seven shots in a row as the MKs finally hit my wall and we became so engaged I lost track of time and reality.
It was pull pin, throw the grenade, shoot the heads, reload, shoot the heads; when they got to the walls throw a grenade, but they kept coming. Wave after damn wave. I saw pincers coming over the wall, I saw people losing their heads, I heard screams, I saw bodies disappear as the pincers got them—it didn’t register. I just kept shooting, reloading and throwing grenades then we heard the whup, whup of the choppers.
They came in and opened fire and hell enveloped the fort as pieces of MKs were raining from the skies. Lucy and Col Garth wreaked havoc on the MKs about the fort. As they cleared the area I went to help Loka—her wall was hardest hit and many of the troops were wounded or dead. She was still okay. Runners were restocking the ammo on the walls and we laid out fresh grenades as one chopper hovered over the fort and lowered a platform inside.
I jumped down and helped load wounded onto the platform. Most were the lucky ones, they had arms and legs or hands snipped off instead of heads. After it was full it landed outside long enough to fill up with troops while the other flew cover. Then we did it all again for the other one. During the lull Tici had all the working 20s reloaded. Again, one person was shot from a building in town but only wounded. She was evacuated as well. Lucy said one more trip, they’d be back soon.
A Planet's Search For History Page 12