by Rod Porter
“And what is believed to be the root cause of their sudden retreat, General?” Demoskeena knowingly inquired for the audience.
“None of the invaders ever assumed that we would be able to unite ground forces in different countries. We believe them to be in a state of desperation, having lost the ability to use their drones.”
“And you propose that we launch our final campaign against what remains of the invaders here in this country?”
“I do. We need to bring the other branches here to Jade. After they have been settled and reorganized, they will spread out strategically throughout the region and help us finish off the enemy, once and for all.”
It was time for delegate Watkins’s fifteen minutes. “What assurances do we have that the aliens are in fact as desperate as you would suggest, General?”
For a moment, Troy was sorry that it was Jackson sitting at his side instead of Colonel Cartwright. Cartwright always fielded these irritating questions, leaving Troy free to address only the issues he deemed significant. Jackson was definitely not diplomatic, but his mere presence at Troy’s side, as his new second-in-command, carried tremendous weight.
“Delegate Watkins,” Troy began, “the proof is in our intelligence. The aliens are abandoning key strongholds in the affiliated countries, strongholds they have maintained for decades. This is the behavior of a desperate enemy.”
“Well, then,” the Prime Minister said, “we will close these proceedings. Unless there are any objections, the foreign branches of the Global Resistance will be welcomed to our city, and we will support the future plans of a final military campaign, over American soil, to eradicate the alien threat.”
The Prime Minister waited to note any objections. There were none.
There had never been such electric tension in the air following a conference. Positive tension, mixed with excitement and hope. For the first time, people actually entertained the thought that maybe humanity would get a second chance. If the reports were true, it looked like just maybe the resistance was going to achieve victory. It was astonishing how far humanity had come. The world was still a rough place, though. A new sense of optimism though, did not mean that the horrors of the wasteland did not still exist. These thoughts kept Troy awake at night. Each and every night, when he went to sleep in his warm bed, he knew there were people falling victim to different atrocities in the wastes as he slept.
A week had passed before all the branches of the Global Resistance were safely tucked away in Jade. The foreign fighters were welcomed as great heroes, as if they were natives of the city themselves. The people threw rose petals at their feet when they entered the city and played trumpets proudly as they processed in. It did the resistance fighters good to be given such preferential treatment. There had been some concern that such a massive influx of people entering Jade could cause a security breach. The biggest fear was that in the commotion, the aliens would somehow discover the secret location of Jade. A week after the foreign branches settled in, those security concerns were gone.
Troy and the other branch leaders had had several meetings and they had come up with a strategy that would be the focal point of the final push to destroy the aliens. The war rooms in Jade and Fort Anderson were organized and primed for operations to begin. The different branches would be scattered at different outposts across the American region. In concert with the air force and other special forces brigades, they would engage the enemy.
On the final night before the operation would be launched, Troy found himself alone in his office at Fort Anderson, staring out the window at the full moon.
Myriad was in his thoughts; how he missed her. She had reported to a nearby outpost that would be the forward operating base and central command center for the air force in the upcoming campaign.
It would all be over soon, Troy told himself with reserved optimism. Tomorrow, he would give the order, and the resistance brigades would depart from Jade and report to their designated posts around the country. Tomorrow would be the first day of the end of the war.
ASSAULT ON FORT ANDERSON
The night was one of the calmest the human race had known in decades, but, at the same time, one of the most unnerving. Troy and the rest of the personnel stationed at Fort Anderson rested easily, yet with a sense of anxiety, knowing that the morning would welcome a new age in the conflict and violence with the invaders. Troy had been plagued by sleepless nights for the past couple of years. Insomnia visited him in cycles, based on his levels of stress and anxiety, but not tonight. Tonight, all of his plans and labors were beginning to bear more fruit than he had ever thought possible. His slumber was so deep that his body took a while to rouse itself from his bed.
At first, he was so tired he did not recognize the loud sounds, but after a moment passed, he regained all his senses. The alarm that was sounding was reserved for only the direst of emergencies. Half-naked, Troy brought his legs around the bed and planted his feet firmly on the floor. For a moment, he thought he was dreaming. Maybe if he waited a little longer, he would wake up and realize that there was no real emergency. But the alarm still sounded. Troy tried to run through possible scenarios in his head as he got out of bed and walked over to his closet. There was a sudden knock on his door as he tried frantically to put on his uniform.
“Come in,” he yelled from across the room, over the sounding alarm.
An aide came into the room and saluted. Troy could tell the aide was shaken up.
“What’s going on, trooper?” Troy asked. “Is there some kind of drill I’m not aware of?”
“No, sir. Fort Anderson is under attack.”
That made no sense. Between the anti-aircraft guns, regular artillery, heavy weapons posts, and number of reserve guards the fort had, the aliens would never attack Fort Anderson, especially without the use of their drones.
“That can’t be,” Troy said. “Is it confirmed that it’s the plague?”
As if answering his question, the ground shook and the room trembled. Troy and the trooper exchanged glances of concern. The tremor both felt and sounded like bombs being dropped.
“I need a damage report,” Troy barked as soon as he entered the Fort Anderson war room. It was three in the morning, and senior staff was still not all accounted for.
“No major structural damage to report, General,” a war room operator announced. “The aliens are using some manner of aircraft we’ve never seen to drop some form of explosives on us. The AA guns are preventing them from dropping them accurately. As long as the AA guns are up, we can deal with the bombers, sir.”
“What about ground forces? Are there any trying to breach the fort?”
“That’s affirmative, sir,” the operator said regretfully. “We’ve got alien juicers and sentinels approaching from all directions. We are totally surrounded.”
Just then, Jackson entered the war room. He too was wiping the sleep from his eyes, apparently caught as off guard as everyone else.
“Get all defensive positions manned,” Jackson said confidently. “We need to double the wall guards and triple the number of active troops on duty to repel the enemy. Get everyone out of their bunks. I want all hands on deck defending this base.”
“Yes, sir,” the operator acknowledged, speaking into her headset to carry out Jackson’s orders.
Jackson came over to Troy and spoke quietly under his breath. “What the hell is going on? They lose their drones and respond by attacking our most heavily fortified surface compound?”
Troy had no answer.
The war room was absolute chaos. Operators were yelling into their headsets. Other aides were positioning the figures for the strategy board, while others froze in terrible uncertainty. This was not supposed to be happening. The enemy was supposed to be on its heels, injured and weak, not attacking the most heavily fortified structure on the planet.
After going over possible scenarios and auxiliary defense options, Troy became impatient. The alien bombs were very powerful, and a
s the AA guns wore down or got overheated, the bombs became more and more accurate. Each time one landed, it felt like the walls were going to come tumbling inward.
“God damn it, why isn’t Jade on the horn yet?” Jackson yelled. “We’re going to need reinforcements, and lots of them.”
“Still no response from Jade, sir,” an operator told Jackson quickly before going about another task. Jackson and Troy exchanged their most apprehensive glance of the assault, because they both knew the same thing. They needed the scores of reinforcements and newly arrived foreign troops that were now stationed nearby in Jade. Without them, it was just a matter of time before their defenses would be overrun. Reports indicated that Fort Anderson was indeed surrounded, and surrounded by a far larger force than what the fort had at its disposal, not to mention the alien bombers. The AA guns could not last forever, and some of them were being neutralized by alien artillery from other types of aircraft. With the foreign branches at his disposal, Troy was confident he could repel the alien assault, but if he could not reach them in Jade, all might be lost. They needed help now!
Outside the fort, enemy bombs continued to fall. The AA guns and artillery shot down many of the aircraft and continued to cause the bombers to veer off course and miss their intended targets. Troopers in sniper towers continued to lay down heavy fire and explosives on the advancing alien juicers and sentinels. Many of the aliens were destroyed while they navigated their way towards the fort’s high walls. The aliens did not know that the particular areas they were advancing in were littered with land mines, and they paid for that ignorance. Finally one of the bombs connected with its first building. The hit caused a new level of pessimism among the defending troops. They had been fighting off these aliens for nearly two hours, and there was still no communication with Jade, which meant there were still no reinforcements coming. All of the soldiers knew that, without reinforcements from Jade, they would all be dead by dawn.
Stephanie had been startled awake moments after Jackson. She knew that he had to report to the war room to find out what was going on. Little Troy had come running into their room, crying. The violent shaking from the falling bombs was terrifying.
“I’ve got to get to the command center,” Jackson said to Stephanie as he dressed frantically. She sat on the edge of the bed, cradling a sobbing Troy in her arms.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but from the sound of things, the fort is under attack.” Jackson leaned in and kissed her gently. “You and Troy stay put. I’ll keep a guard on the door.”
Stephanie obeyed Jackson’s wishes for little more than a few moments after he left. She was not just going to cower in her room and wait to be killed. It had taken some convincing, and some threats that she knew she could not make good on, but the guard outside the door finally agreed to usher her to the infirmary, while a second stayed behind with Troy.
When she arrived, Stephanie was stunned to see just how primitive the infirmary was compared to the one in Hivestown. Dr. Toddle, the head physician, was addressing his entire staff.
“The assault has just begun, so we are going to have a lot of wounded brought in here, probably at a very fast pace,” Dr. Toddle yelled over the sounds of combat, amid slight tremors in the room. “Remember your training, and above all, try to remain calm.”
Stephanie could tell that the head physician was as nervous as the staff members, and-from looking around at the facilities and the equipment-that Toddle was not half the healer she was. “What is the proper protocol for incoming patients?” she asked, to everyone’s surprise. No one knew her, but she had raised a valid point. “Things are going to get chaotic,” she continued. “We need some kind of ordered system in place. If we don’t know our-”
“And who are you?” Dr. Toddle asked, irritated that his authority was being usurped. “I am in charge here.” He stepped down and got face-to-face with her. “Just try to keep up and do your job.”
His last words were accompanied by their first round of patients. A nurse burst through the main doors, wheeling an injured man on a gurney. The injured trooper was on his back, and his clothes were soaked through with blood. The nurse wheeled him into the far corner of the infirmary. Immediately, Toddle went over to the victim before anyone else could, particularly Stephanie. He did not acknowledge the fact, but she had been absolutely right with her comments about organization. He stood over the patient and examined him slowly. The soldier had shrapnel in the side of his leg that needed to be dug out with a blade, but first his leg needed to be sliced slightly with a scalpel. Toddle gripped the scalpel intently, but he froze up right before he was to make the first incision. The entire staff noticed the fear and hesitation in his eyes, and some of them instinctively glanced across the gurney at Stephanie.
She figured she’d give the doctor a few minutes to collect himself. He did, and he eventually coaxed himself into operating. Stephanie would have to watch him very closely. Things were going to get a lot more intense. She was sure that he would fold under the pressure, and that could cost people their lives. She was not going to let that happen.
Two hours into the assault, Troy was beginning to get panicked. He hid it from everyone in the war room, and he made sure that his voice came through loud and clear in his transmissions to the fort’s personnel, but even they knew that if something did not change soon, the fort would be overrun.
The AA guns were overheated almost to the point of malfunction, and they were running low on ammunition. Station commanders were reporting heavy casualties across the board, and the aliens were very close to breaching the outer defenses. Unless something drastic altered the course of the assault, the alien ground forces would breach the fort’s perimeter defenses within twenty minutes.
In the war room, they were running out of options. Jackson and Troy knew that they were done for. Just as Troy was about to issue the order to evacuate the base, a war-room operator yelled what they had all been desperate to hear for the past two hours.
“Sir, we’ve got Jade on the line!”
Troy did not care if it was the Prime Minister or a local schoolteacher on the line. “Put it through,” he said, with a hidden sense of hope.
“Hello?” came the garbled response. The voice sounded a bit hysterical. “Does anyone copy?”
“This is General Williams from Fort Anderson. Who am I speaking with?”
“God, it’s good to hear your voice, sir. This is Corporal Valeer transmitting from the Jade command center.”
Everyone was relieved that they had gotten through to the command center.
“We are under attack, Corporal. I say again, Fort Anderson is under heavy attack. We have sustained heavy casualties, and we need reinforcements right now.”
There was a slight pause that made everyone a little uncomfortable. For a moment, they thought that the signal had been lost. “You haven’t heard, sir?”
Troy did not like the sound of that. “Perhaps you are the one with the hearing problem, Corporal. We are under attack, and unless you get reinforcements over here ASAP, we are going to be overrun.”
The Corporal exhaled. “Jade has been completely destroyed, sir.”
The infirmary at Fort Anderson was getting overcrowded with wounded resistance fighters and civilians. Dr. Toddle had held it together better than the rest of the staff had expected. It was not until midway through the assault, when there were over seventy wounded in the infirmary, that he finally lost his nerve. He was examining a critically wounded soldier when the hole in the young fighter’s abdomen turned into a geyser of blood. The blood soaked Dr. Toddle’s face and clothes. At that moment, five more wounded were wheeled in on gurneys, screaming in agony, but the infirmary was running out of space. The way Dr. Toddle had organized the whole scene was a disgrace, as far as Stephanie was concerned.
“Dr. Toddle, we’ve got three with gunshot wounds to the chest and leg, and the other two were hit with some kind of artillery,” reported the a
ides who had wheeled the injured fighters in.
Perhaps the warm, sticky blood covering his face had been the last straw, but whatever the reason, Toddle was completely frozen and did not respond.
“Doctor? Doctor?” The aides tried to snap him out of it with no success.
“Okay.” Stephanie stood up tall and yelled, “Everyone listen up!” For the first time, the infirmary seemed calmer. “Priorities on the left side of the room, probables on the right. Now!”
Grateful to have someone making sense of things, the staff got to work organizing the room into probable and priority sections. Stephanie went straight for the first critically-wounded soldier. “Get that EKG monitor I saw in storage,” she said to an aide.
“But ma’am, that’s very old. We don’t even know-”
“I said get it!”
The nurse ran to do as she was told.
Stephanie went back to her patient. “I need an IV in this man.” The soldier she was examining recognized that he was about to be operated on and endure intense pain. He began to fight Stephanie to try to jump off the gurney.
“Where are my hands?” Stephanie said.
Within seconds, a group of aides came to restrain the patient so she could administer medical attention. It was not long before Stephanie had the infirmary operating in some kind of order. But even she could see that there were too many wounded and not enough staff or supplies. Whatever was happening, it needed to be stopped, or the infirmary would soon be nothing but a human storage facility.
“What do you mean, destroyed?” Troy said for everyone in the war room.
The corporal sounded exhausted. “We don’t know what happened exactly. Some kind of bomb detonated; very powerful explosion. Reports indicate the blast radius emanated from the lower laboratory of the military bunkers.”
