by Richard Mann
‘I remember the Luftwaffe bombing London, I remember those days, you never forget. Sirens wailing, people shouting in fear, the whistles of the bombs as they get closer and closer, wishing it wasn’t us,’ says the old man looking at the younger man.
There is a long trail of weary, filthy, hungry and dejected, troops and refugees, evacuating London. Some find shelter in house basements, others make for woods and forests, anywhere they can find concealment from the alien menace. Cars and troop transports head for the Welsh mountains and other isolated spots where the invaders cannot find them.
HONG KONG
On a hillside overlooking Hong Kong, a Humvee with a broadcast satellite dish targets an enormous alien craft hovering over the centre of the city. It has a Sirius logo on the side, an S inside a three-dimensional triangle. Inside the Humvee, a technician adjusts his targeting computer and wipes his brow in the humid atmosphere.
‘Initiating microwave cyber-attack. Let’s hope this jams their signals.’ The technician presses a red button, and there is a loud, vibrant hum from the roof of the Humvee as the microwave dish blasts powerful waves of microwaves at the alien ship, hoping to disrupt their electronics and communications. The heat and humidity inside the Humvee increase, as the dish gives off heat, the technician gulping down water and pouring it over his face. The Humvee continues to blast the spaceship with microwaves but to no effect. After a short while, a small alien fighter emerges from the main ship, accelerates towards the Humvee, its weapons locked, and blasts the Humvee to pieces. The technician didn’t know what hit him, as the alien fighter circles and headed back to the ship.
LOS ANGELES
In the dry hills overlooking Los Angeles, hidden amongst a cluster of trees, a large laser emerges, protruding from out of a protective steel cannon, it has a Sirius logo on the shiny metal as it fires a four-inch beam of green light—a laser—at the huge, ugly, alien spaceship dominating the skyline. The powerful laser is deflected by the spacecraft shields in a blaze of light. Two alien fighters approach and blast the hillside destroying the laser cannon.
MANILA
An alien ship, black and menacing, one-mile wide, hovers over the massive conurbation of cities known as Manila. Alien fighter craft patrol the blue skies unchallenged. The city is burning. A firestorm has started which is raging through the cities of Manila, helped by a heat wave and strong winds.
A Filipino man carries his baby daughter in his arms as his young, eager eight-year-old son runs alongside him. They run along Roxas Boulevard by the sea wall facing Manila Bay, avoiding the dead bodies, and rubbish strewn along the street. Their clothes are rags and their faces dirty. The baby is crying for milk as the father turns to his son.
‘We will make for the US Embassy, we will be safe there.’
‘Where’s mummy?’ The boy asks. The father does not answer as they run past the hotels on the boulevard, most damaged, collapsed or burning. They get to the embassy and walk over the broken remnants of the walls into the grounds. Parked on the lawn is an alien ship, the bodies of US soldiers strewn all about. An alien guard, on patrol, his personal shield glimmering, looks at them menacingly; they freeze as they stare at the alien.
‘We must get out of the city!’ cries the father to his son. He looks around and sees an abandoned tricycle, it looks intact. Does it have petrol? They run to the tricycle, and the boy gets in holding the baby, while the father starts it up.
The alien guard walks slowly towards them, laser pistol raised. The tricycle doesn’t start. In a panic he tries again and it fires up, he guns the tricycle and they shoot off weaving in and out of abandoned cars. As soon as he feels safe, the father turns round to his son, ‘Son, I’m heading for Uncle Bill’s house in Quezon City, we will be safe there.’ He heads down R-7 avoiding burning buildings, taking detours to avoid the fires and any alien foot patrols.
The sun sets over Manila Bay, alien ships doing their evening patrols, then darting back to dock with the huge black ship dominating the city; a cloud of fear and oppression hangs over the city.
People flee to the sea and to the mountains, to get away from the fire and escape the invaders. Filipino soldiers, marines and communist rebels lead refugees into the hills outside Manila. There is a resolute look in their eyes as they live to fight another day.
Planning their revenge.
Chapter 51
Fighting a Losing Battle
SIRIUS HQ COMMAND BUNKER - VIRGINIA
General Schmitt was pacing up and down, wiping his brow.
‘Has the X-37D left the British airbase yet?’ The general asked the communications operator.
‘Yes, sir. Eighteen hours ago.’
‘Has it had its shield encryption codes changed so the aliens cannot breach its shields?’
The operator hesitated. ‘I don’t know sir. I am attempting to contact the pilot now. They call him Kojak.’
‘Yes. I understand Captain Morgan is on board?’
‘Yes sir, they refuelled on the Ronald Reagan destined for New York. No contact since sir.’
General Schmitt’s face goes red as he sucks on a cigar.
‘Goddamn it! There are troops onboard. Battle-hardened British SAS troops come to join our boys here in the fight, including a certain Captain Morgan. They’re worth their weight in gold. Keep trying!’ General Scott walked into the control room looking disconsolate.
‘I don’t know how much longer we can hang on. I think we’re fighting a losing battle here Mike. Anyway, give me an update,’ asked a grim-faced General Scott.
‘We’re waiting for Captain Morgan’s Intel report on New York. Nothing so far. No news on the SAS team. Frankly, I’m a bit worried. The alien bastards are building a wall around New York. It’s a fortress—maybe they can’t get out.’
‘Keep trying,’ replied Scott. Schmitt continued.
‘With our Sirius technology we’ve had some successes, but many failures—but we’re keeping them busy, while we regroup our forces. The PR7s are working well, we just don’t have enough of them. Goddamn budget cuts. The Gatling gun on the X-37Ds and carriers seems to work well also. It doesn’t breach their shields, but it has such kinetic energy, it forces their fighters off course, sometimes crashing them. But again, we don’t have enough of them.’
‘Maybe we can modify them for our F22 fighters,’ said General Scott.
‘I will see what I can do,’ said General Schmitt as he picked up the phone. ‘Colonel, how many Sirius Gatling units do you have in stock—can you modify them for our F22s?’
Chapter 52
New Horizons
GRAND CANYON
Peter and Vinnie managed to catch one hour’s sleep on the plane, and just as important, get some food down their necks from the galley. Peter was wondering about the strange creatures who rescued them from certain death, in New York. Vampires—two of them—a pale man and a black haired beauty, that much he remembered. They would meet again, of that he was certain. Events now seemed to be taking on a momentum of their own, all sorts of forces were at work here. Good and evil.
They were now watching the view from the window in the X-37D as it flew down the Grand Canyon at near supersonic speed.
‘Wow what a view, first time I’ve seen the Grand Canyon. Kojak’s a great pilot,’ said Vinnie like a schoolboy on his first field trip. ‘They’ve got lamb curry Jalfrezi!’ as he brought Peter his food.
Peter was pre-occupied with his thoughts: How is Jennifer? How are the children? Are they staying indoors as he told them before he left? He looked at the wing of the X-37D. It was almost translucent, shimmering as the shield generators cloaked the surface of the plane. Peter was shaken out of his thoughts as Kojak’s voice came over the tannoy.
‘Alien activity over Las Vegas. We’re taking the round-about route to Mojave. Diverting North to Death Valley. Fasten seatbelts, we’ll be f
lying low and fast. The aliens are monitoring our comms, so I’m running silent from now on.’
The X-37D shot out of the Grand Canyon and increased speed. Soon it was flying fifty feet above Death Valley. The dust billowed behind the plane as it hugged the desert floor. Peter wondered at the huge white salt flats and dry lake beds as he put on his sunglasses to shield his eyes. He could see the shimmering heat haze from the hottest, and lowest, place on earth. Then he spotted sand dunes, he had a memory flashback of Yemen; next he saw a lush green oasis, then got a view of the surrounding mountains. At any other time, this would be an exhilarating adventure. Peter jumped as he saw an alien fighter hovering near the plane. It seemed to fly level then it veered off. Kojak gunned the X-37D to full speed as it flew at low level between the mountains in Death Valle. The landscape became a blur, and there was no sign of the fighter.
They were flying through the green valleys of the Sequoia National Park, its majestic redwood trees reaching up towards the plane. It looked beautiful in the sunshine, ‘I must take Jennifer and the kids here,’ he thought. The X-37D hugged the valleys as it wove in and out, to avoid detection. As it came out of the forest, gaining height, it gunned forward to full speed again.
Soon, they were in the desert again: the Mojave Desert. As the shimmering X-37D made a landing approach, Peter could make out cacti, and strange trees, which he had seen before in one of his geography books, but couldn’t quite remember what they were. The plane slowed, and where there had been bone dry desert and dustbowl, there was now a runway.
The plane landed smoothly, but Peter thought they were going to crash into a rock face, then an opening appeared, and the plane disappeared into the rock; the runway had gone back to the desert. Peter smiled, ‘Looks like the take-off runway for Thunderbird 2!’ Vinnie grinned, they were so much alike, boys at heart.
Inside the plane, Peter breathed a sigh of relief, and then turned to Vinnie, who looked heavenward and gave a sign of thanks at their safe arrival at last. ‘I’m worried about Jennifer, she has a habit of acting on impulse.’
But Peter had a sinking feeling in his stomach, and that wasn’t good.
Their SAS training had prepared them for all types of situations, but nothing could prepare them for what was coming; their lives would never be the same again.
Chapter 53
Kidnap
BRECON BEACONS
Jennifer was pacing back and forth in their family hideaway in the Brecon Beacons. The house was concealed in a wooded valley and could not be seen from the air. There was no electricity, but there was a wood-burning stove, which heated the house and cooked food. Jennifer’s children, Sally and Robert were playing with a puzzle in front of the burner as Jennifer talked to Peter’s sister, Ruth.
‘I’m fed up with staying indoors all the time!’ Jennifer moved her arms around in frustration, a fire burning in her eyes.
‘Peter did the right thing to tell you to stay here, you’ll be safe, but don’t wander outside. There have been reports of alien patrols,’ said Ruth, trying to calm Peter’s emotional wife.
‘How could he just leave us here? He always leaves us, he’s never at home when we need him!’ Jennifer shook her fist at no-one in particular, her long brown hair flowing over her shoulders.
‘When’s daddy coming?’ asked Sally.
‘Soon,’ lied Jennifer. ‘I’m going to get some fresh air!’ Jennifer grabbed her coat and walked out the door.
‘Come back!’ cried Ruth as she ran after her. ‘Jennifer come back!’ she screamed. Peter had warned her about Jennifer’s impulsiveness. Ruth tried to stop her, but then Sally shouted to her, and she ran back to the children, shaking her head. ‘Stupid woman!’ sobbed Ruth.
Jennifer walked through the woods and onto the hills at the top of the valley. It was a bright, sunny autumn day, the air was fresh, and she took in long lungfuls of it. She felt alive and happy as she remembered the times she spent walking with Peter in the hills; good times. She closed her eyes as her imagination ran riot: Peter hugging her and kissing her in the long green grass, the birds singing, She felt a gentle breeze and the warm sun on her face.
Then the birds stopped singing.
There was an eerie silence. All she could hear was the soft breeze. Her heart pounded as she opened her eyes. Her blood froze, and she couldn’t speak. In front of her were two Narzuks in black uniforms. As they grabbed her, she screamed in fear, sobbing, begging for mercy, Peter’s words ringing in her head, “Don’t leave the house.” She yearned to be back in the safety of her home, with her children.
But it was too late.
Now her children were without a mother and a father.
As the alien grabbed her with its thin, wiry arms she looked at its large black soulless eyes, which had red veins running through them. It had light green flaking skin. Its long sharp teeth chattered in excitement as it got closer to her, drooling saliva.
She gasped as another alien put a device into her neck and she became unconscious. They dragged her into a ship and placed her in an incubation capsule, along with a hundred others in the hold of the ship. The ship took off and accelerated at an astonishing speed. It sped over the green hills and mountains of the Welsh countryside, heading for Birmingham.
Hovering over the now-devastated city was a black alien ship over a mile wide, dominating the city, putting much of it in the shade. It emitted grinding and screeching noises, as if it had a cog loose, as much smaller craft of all shapes and sizes navigated back and forth around the ship, like bees around a nest.
Jennifer woke up and was shunted from the small alien ship. Her eyes were open, and she could hear herself screaming, but nobody took any notice. Her arms were strapped down so she could not move. She saw an alien commander in a black uniform, with greenish skin and big black eyes, looking at her perfect skin and well-bred features, like a scientist examining an animal in a laboratory.
She noticed a red armband on the sleeve, then her heart skipped a beat as she recognized the symbol. A swastika?
He ran a DNA scanner over her which beeped and flashed green; he nodded, smiling, his sharp teeth chattering. He pressed a button on the incubation pod and she fell asleep again, sedated. The craft landed, and the alien commander pointed to a larger transport ship.
‘Mothership,’ and pointed upwards. They looked up to see the mothership in high Earth orbit, like a small moon passing through the sky. The incubator pod moved through the air, controlled by another alien soldier in a grey uniform, who looked different from the others, subservient to the black-uniformed Narzuks. Jennifer’s incubator was stowed on the transport ship along with a thousand others from all over the UK. They all had perfect features like Jennifer, perfect skin hair, teeth, nails, and body: perfect DNA.
But the drugged women’s faces were expressionless and empty.
High above the United States Eastern seaboard, in Earth orbit, the massive black mothership, one hundred miles wide, hummed and ground away. Transport ships from all over the world docked to the ship and offloaded their precious human cargo. Thousands of women were being taken inside the black monolith spaceship above them, taken from every continent, all with perfect skin and facial features.
Untarnished.
Jennifer, half-conscious, was aware of being transported down a long corridor, before falling unconscious again. When she woke, her heart pounded as she tried to move, but she was strapped down, covered by two wide straps, covering her now naked body. It was humid, hot, and she was lying flat inside a clear incubation pod, she could just move her head sideways, and she could see another pod, with another woman, next to her. She tried to speak, but no one could hear her. She looked into the eyes of the woman next to her—a look of terror, helplessness, and a mouthed “Help me!” A shiver went down her spine, and she took a sharp intake of breath, as an alien, green-skinned, with a white medical type uniform looked at he
r. She looked into the black eyes, and she thought she could detect a smile as the alien pressed a button, and a metal tube slid into her arm.
She screamed in pain, as it extracted DNA samples. The being collected the tube, smiled again and walked to the next pod. When she moved her head to the left side, she could see two tubes, one coloured blue, with a water symbol next to it. She sucked it and cool water trickled down her throat. Next to it was another wider tube, which she sucked and a porridge-like substance came out. ‘I will survive,’ she whispered in the hot sticky atmosphere.
As she looked up she could see she was inside a huge cathedral, cave-like structure, with a high roof. Lights flickered, and there were multiple floors on either side going up to the roof, like some huge, grotesque Italian Opera House, but on a vast scale. An eerie light shone about the cavern, the incubation pods muffling the screams of a million women. If only she had listened to Pete, her hero, strong blue-eyed, rugged and handsome. He had something of the red-blooded warrior about him. And the name he kept whispering in his sleep. Caius, Who is Caius?
Chapter 54
Roman Mistress
He has an aura about him, charismatic, sexually magnetic, and she remembers their lovemaking. Hot and passionate, she thought she would faint with the intensity of it. ‘Rescue me Pete, rescue me.’ Then she falls unconscious and starts dreaming, she is going back in time, to a former life.
She is a teenage girl and she is in a wooden cage with many other slaves—women, men, and children taken from her village in Gaul—taken by the Roman soldiers. She looks around terrified, searching for her mother, but she is not amongst the dirty, exhausted people crammed into the cage. The smell is awful. She is hungry and she starts to cry, the tears rolling down her dirty cheeks. She brushes her long brown hair and looks around her. She clings onto the cage as she looks out, there are large stone buildings all around, and there is a crowd of well-dressed Romans looking at the slaves in the cages, asking questions of the slave trader from Gaul, who has a whip in his hand. He is looking forward to making a lot of coin this day.
