Outside Context Problem: Book 03 - The Slightest Hope of Victory

by Christopher Nuttall

RAF Lossiemouth, United Kingdom

  Day 249

  The howl of the klaxon awoke Philip as he desperately fought for sleep. He rolled over, despite his training, and tried to bury his head in his pillow. A moment later, a strong hand grabbed his ankle and yanked hard, pulling him halfway out of his bunk. Cursing, Phillip rolled over and caught himself before he fell all the way to the hard floor.

  “Show a leg, you bastards,” the Flight Sergeant ordered. Rumour had it that he was old enough to have fought in the first Battle of Britain and had stuck around long enough to serve his country again. Philip had heard of Vietnam vets still in the US military, but the Battle of Britain had been over sixty years ago. It didn't strike him as very likely. “They’ll be back here at any moment.”

  Philip grabbed for his flight suit and started pulling it on, wishing – again – that he could just go back to bed. The operational tempo was killing them all slowly; tired pilots made mistakes, mistakes they couldn't recover from before they died. A Tornado pilot had slammed into a mountainside at supersonic speed two days ago; the other pilots believed that he'd been too tired to fly properly. There hadn't been an inquest into the matter yet, Philip knew; if the aliens won, there might be no one to hold it. Maybe the RAF was better at holding inquires than NASA, but he wouldn't have put money on it. Large organisations were always poor when it came to assigning blame.

  He stumbled into the kitchen and gratefully scooped up toast, eggs and a large mug of coffee, sitting down at one end of the long table to eat. There were several dozen pilots coming in and out at any one time, including French, German and Spanish pilots as well as British and American. Quite the United Nations force, Philip had joked privately, although it was no laughing matter. If the aliens had tried to fight the entire human race at once, they might well have lost – or at least have been forced to resort to planetary bombardment to win.

  “Better than the south,” Monique said, as she sat down facing him. She was one of a handful of female fliers in the French Air Force, flying the Dassault Rafale. “We were dropping bombs on our own damn cities.”

  Philip eyed her as she took a sip of her coffee. Her makeshift squadron had been routed over to Lossiemouth after the aliens had smashed the civilian airport they were using as a base – and she knew that she’d been facing the same punishing schedule as himself – but she still managed to look breathtakingly attractive. Short dark hair framed a cute little face that might have had some Arab blood in it somewhere, while her dark eyes sparkled with mischief. If he hadn't been so tired, Philip considered, he might have made a pass at her. There were plenty of stories about what female pilots did between missions.

  But he was barely awake enough to drink his coffee and the stories were probably lies anyway. The RAF’s culture seemed to be less formal than the USAF’s; he’d heard jokes and stories that wouldn't have been shared quite so openly on an American base. One of them had talked about a Para who’d been told that the massage girls in Afghanistan offered special services if they were offered extra money. He’d make the mistake of believing the joker who’d told him that story.

  “Speak for yourself,” he muttered. Some of the stories out of America were horrific. “I want to go home and rest.”

  “Me too,” Monique agreed. “But that isn't likely to happen.”

  The klaxon changed its note and the pilots scrambled to their feet, leaving their food and drink on the table behind them. Philip grabbed his coffee and swigged it as he started to run down towards the hangers, where the Falcon was already waiting for him. The pilots weren't allowed to sleep close to the aircraft, a precaution against them being caught up in an alien attack. Right now, Philip suspected that safety precaution had come back to bite them on the ass.

  “Good luck,” Monique called, as she ran towards her own aircraft. “Get one for me!”

  Philip smiled, threw the plastic mug into the nearest bin and scrambled up into the Falcon’s cockpit. The ground crewmen had already replaced the missiles on the craft’s wings, but rumour had it that stockpiles were running short. No one wanted to face wave after wave of alien craft armed with nothing, but guns alone. Rumour also had it that someone was designing a laser weapon that could be carried on jet fighters, yet nothing had actually come of it. Philip would have been surprised if any usable hardware arrived in time to do any good.

  The standard precautions for taking off seemed to have been pushed aside by the wartime emergency, he realised, as the flight controllers pushed them down the runway and up into the air. One glance at the live feed from the passive sensor station told him why; the aliens were massing a major attack, circling around Scotland to come at Lossiemouth from the sea, forcing the base’s defenders to get everything into the air before it was too late. He caught sight of a line of ambulances parked at one end of the runway and shuddered, before falling into formation with the rest of the exiles. This time, they wouldn't be allowed to engage the aliens over the water.

  He listened to the orders as the fighter craft fanned out, ready to meet the alien offensive. The aliens didn't seem to be trying to be subtle; looking at their formation, it seemed more like they were ready to take a few losses in order to wear down the defenders. There were a handful of other craft apart from the standard almond-shaped alien fighter in the force, he realised, making a mental note to keep an eye on them. Non-standard aircraft sometimes produced non-standard threats.

  “On my command, prepare to engage,” the flight leader ordered. “Choose your partners and prepare to dance.”

  “And remember to use the force,” someone else added. “It’s the only way to win.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” the flight leader snapped. None of them felt much like humour after days of heavy fighting, broken only by snatched hours of sleep. “Stand by ...”

  Philip fought down a yawn, keeping an eye on his equipment. It wasn't just the pilots who were being subject to punishing schedules, but their aircraft as well. Any military aircraft required constant maintenance to keep it operational, yet there hadn't really been time to give the Falcon the servicing it needed. It was alarmingly possible that something would fail at the worst possible moment. If the aliens had similar problems, he'd heard nothing during his stay on the alien craft to suggest it.

  “Fire,” the flight leader snapped.

  “Fox-two,” Philip said, unleashing a Sidewinder towards the mass of alien craft. They seemed to come to a complete halt, then opened fire, spitting lethal light towards missiles and human defenders alike. He swore as several missiles exploded as they were cut down, then threw the plane into an evasive pattern to avoid an alien craft that seemed to be firing at him specifically.

  “We confirm four hits,” the AWACS said. “I say again, we confirm four hits.”

  Philip cursed as the alien craft suddenly moved forward, charging right at the human aircraft. They’d fired seventeen missiles and they’d only scored four hits? The alien tactics suddenly made sense; they’d worked out a new way to force the humans to waste some of their missiles and now they were coming in for the kill.

  “Go free,” the flight leader ordered, giving up control. But no one could hope to provide useful instructions in a dogfight. “Engage at will; I say again, engage at will.”

  ***

  “They’ve started dogfighting with the flyboys,” Plummer called. “They must be trying to wear them down this time!”

  Carolyn nodded. The RAF Regiment soldiers, male and female alike, were sleeping in tents, while the pilots slept in barracks, but from what she’d seen of them it was clear that the soldiers were getting more rest. But all she had to do was maintain and operate the Dalek, while the fighter pilots had to handle a far more complex job with far greater risks. Most of the aircraft that were hit by alien weapons exploded so rapidly that there was no hope of escape for the pilot.

  “I’m putting the Dalek on alert,” she said, clicking a switch. Anything without the proper IFF signal would now be engaged without warning. “And
you might want to ...”

  There was a deafening roar as something passed by overhead, so low that she could make out the details on its hull as she threw herself to the ground. The alien craft had completely evaded both the radar network and passive sensors and made it to Lossiemouth without being noticed. Streaks of blue-white light blasted down as it fired on the airfield, blowing apart barracks and hangers with equal abandon. The Dalek whirred as it brought its weapon to bear on the alien craft, but it was already too late. A thunderous explosion marked the destruction of one of the weapons storage points near the hangers. The entire airfield seemed to shake as the weapons were destroyed.

  Carolyn cursed out loud as the alien craft shot away, having completed its mission. A handful of missiles chased after it, but it was moving too fast for them to intercept it and too low for the Dalek to take it out. Plummer was shouting something at her, yet her ears were ringing so loudly that she couldn't hear anything else. She pointed to them in irritation, then realised that he was demanding to know why they hadn't tracked the alien craft. Carefully, she signalled back that the alien craft had come in too low.

  She rubbed her ears, wondering if she’d permanently lost her hearing. That would ruin her career, all right; only an complete idiot would think that a deaf person could serve in the military. They wouldn’t be able to hear orders barked by a Drill Sergeant, let alone anyone else. She relaxed, a moment later, as the ringing started to fade away. Plummer still had to shout at her to be heard.

  “We need to move the Dalek,” he shouted. “They’ll come here again!”

  Carolyn scowled. RAF Lossiemouth was clearly no longer usable as a front-line air force base, not without some heavy repairs and resupply. And, given what she'd heard about the aliens picking off bridges and damaging roads, resupply might no longer be an option. One of the pictures on the television that had somehow escaped the censors had shown the Forth Road Bridge shattered, both towers collapsed into the river. Routing supplies up north was going to be harder in future.

  She glanced down at the live feed and froze. There were more contacts heading towards RAF Lossiemouth. A lot more contacts.

  ***

  The alien craft ended the dogfight as soon as they’d entered it, slipping away to join the rest of their force. Philip watched them go, knowing that they’d chosen to abandon the fight rather than been driven away. Seven jet fighters had been shot down, for only two alien craft. It wasn't a worthwhile exchange rate, even though he knew far more about their limitations than anyone else on the base. The RAF was steadily losing the fight.

  “Attention,” a tired voice said, over the radio. “RAF Lossiemouth is Case Omega; I say again, RAF Lossiemouth is Case Omega.”

  Philip felt his blood run cold. Case Omega meant that the base had been hammered beyond all hope of immediate repair. Planes could neither land there nor take off, let alone receive maintenance and resupply. Combined with the lost civilian airfields, the RAF might just have lost its ability to hold the north of Scotland. He glanced down at the live feed and swore again. The vast force of alien craft advancing towards Scotland suggested that they had something in mind apart from continuing to pound on the RAF.

  “Understood,” the flight leader said.

  “Head to Leuchars,” the tired voice said. “There are other planes forming up there to escort you in.”

  “Joy,” a voice – Philip barely recognise it as Monique – muttered.

  He couldn't disagree. The jets were running low on fuel – and if the aliens prevented them from landing, they would fall out of the sky. They’d already forced the RAF to pull its remaining tanker aircraft out of Scotland. No, all they could do was fly to RAF Leuchars and hope that the airbase could refuel and rearm the jets. And that the aliens left them alone long enough to get ready to resume the fight.

  “And such a force, that almost certainly means invasion,” Monique added. “What happens now?”

  Philip had no answer.

  ***

  Carolyn grimaced as the alien craft came into view, advancing towards what remained of the airbase. They’d already swept around the area, shooting at anything that even looked suspicious – but they’d missed the Dalek, hidden in the trees and the soldiers with portable missile launchers. According to a brief update from the network, a company of Scots Guards were already on their way, yet they wouldn't be in place for hours. The RAF Regiment was all there was in place to defend the airbase.

  “We want to bleed them rather than stop them, because we can't,” Captain Falkner had said. He’d given Carolyn the ultimate compliment of treating her like one of the lads, back when she had been assigned to his command. “We get in a handful of blows, then we run. Don’t try to be a hero now, just give them a bloody nose and run.”

  She peered at the landing craft through her binoculars. It looked rather like an oversized F-117, although it was larger than a RAF Hercules transport aircraft. She couldn't help thinking that it looked deadlier than the alien fighters, even though no one was entirely sure what weapons it carried. A human transport rarely carried anything more than countermeasures, but aliens might have different ideas.

  It came to a halt over the runway and Captain Falkner snapped out a command. Carolyn pushed the button, activating the Dalek, and it spat out a bolt of plasma towards the alien craft. For a long moment, she was convinced, as energy twisted around it, that it had a force field protecting its hull from humans weapons – and then it tilted and fell out of the sky, hitting the ground with a thunderous crash. But it had survived almost intact, she realised, as alien warriors came boiling out of it.

  The RAF Regiment fired Stingers at the alien fighters as they came back to deal with the resistance, then opened fire on the alien warriors with rifles and emplaced submachine guns. Carolyn stared as the alien warriors advanced, already laying down covering fire to allow their comrades to attack forward with commendable speed, then she flicked the Dalek onto automatic and joined Plummer in crawling backwards through the woods. The aliens lost another craft as it came too close to the Dalek, then sprayed the woods with plasma fire, seemingly at random. Something struck the Dalek and it exploded in a brilliant white flash, followed by a fireball rising up into the sky. Carolyn scowled – without it, there was absolutely no hope of defending the airbase – and then kept moving. They had to reach the RV point before the soldiers there pulled out, ceding the ground to the aliens.

  “Keep moving,” Captain Falkner hissed, as the sound of fighting began to die away. “We don’t have far to go.”

  Carolyn nodded, hearing other sounds in the distance. Now that they had secured the airbase – she couldn’t hear any human weapons being fired now – the aliens would be landing all over Lossiemouth itself. She flinched as she saw a flight of alien transports high overhead, no doubt intending to land troops in positions to block egress from the town. From what she’d been told about how they’d secured Washington and other American cities, they would block the roads, then concentrate on dealing with any resistance inside the town itself ... if there was any resistance. Threatened alien invasion or not, the British Government still wasn't keen on handing out weapons to its people. Much of the civilian population would have no way to resist the occupier.

  Luck was with them; they reached the RV point, where a handful of SF soldiers greeted them and pointed them towards the next RV point. Several soldiers groaned at the thought of more walking, but Carolyn hid her own dismay as best as she could. It was easy to acquire the reputation of a weak and female woman, even if none of the men looked very enthusiastic either.

  “Just heard a report from HQ,” one of the newcomers said. “Apparently, there’s landings all around the north of Scotland and one of their big ships – those really big ships – is on the way. The flyboys have been forced to pull out completely, along with the navy. Things are getting a bit sticky, right?”

  Carolyn nodded in agreement.

  “We’ll get to the next RV point and report in,” Capt
ain Falkner said. He sounded as if he was trying to keep them focused, rather than worrying about the future – or their families. “They’ll have some use for us, even if only as infantrymen. And we’ll get better data there.”

  “Have a good one,” the SF soldier said.

  It wasn't until they were walking away that Carolyn realised that the SF troopers intended to recon the alien positions – or die trying. And if they failed to get their intelligence back to someone who could use it ...

  She didn't even want to think about the possible consequences.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Guthrie Castle, United Kingdom/Texas, USA

  Day 251

  “I think that’s the latest data, Mr. President,” Lieutenant Danielle Grove said. “It doesn't look good.”

  The President scowled in agreement. On the map, the aliens appeared to have secured control of the north of Scotland, a line of control that put nearly a third of the country in their hands. He knew from his own experience that most of the occupied zone wouldn't even have seen an alien, but by concentrating their forces at choke points and military bases the aliens could exert control over the remainder of the area without spreading themselves too thin. Their command of the air gave them the ability to move troops around without interference from the remains of the British forces on the ground.

  “So far, the Scots Guards and Territorial Army units are trying to hold a line here, in front of Dundee, but thousands of people are trying to flee the aliens and making it harder to move military convoys around the country,” the Lieutenant continued. “Luckily, civilian stockpiles of fuel are almost non-existent or it would be a great deal worse. Even so, the aliens are still chipping away at the RAF, which makes it harder for the British to provide air cover to their troops ...”

  “Which allows the aliens to grind them down, piece by piece,” the President said. It was straight out of the same playbook the USAF had written for the war in Iraq, with the added advantage of alien transport craft. They were carrying out the ultimate airborne invasion of another country, with a speed and manoeuvrability no human military force could hope to match. “And then they can head north.”